Happy Scapula

Deliberation

In my last post, I discussed the testimony of both prosecution and defense.  I described how the prosecution had a substantial amount of testimony from two witnesses, and the defense had a single witness, who wasn't particularly credible, and whom they themselves inadvertently contradicted in their closing arguments.

If we were to start from a presumption of innocence, the case was still not a forgone conclusion.  There had to be sufficient evidence against the defendant to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had committed the crime of which she was accused.

We began deliberations with little semblance of order, like a business meeting with no one running it.  Conversation turned this way and that, focusing on this or that part of the testimony.  We all agreed that the cup had essentially nothing to do with whether the crime had been committed.  We also agreed that we felt that the police witnesses were credible, overall, and that the daughter was not very credible.  I also pointed out that the daughter really had only refuted one of the prosecution's points: she said Mary's speech had not been slurred.

We had been instructed not to interpret expert opinion (officers saying  she "was ... drunk", daughter saying she didn't appear drunk) as evidence, but that we could consider expert opinion in our interpretation of the evidence.  As we continued to discuss the evidence, regardless of expert interpretations and the statements of counsel, it appeared to most of us more and more apparent in which direction we were leaning.

That she had been driving was not in dispute.  That she had had a drink was not in dispute, as she told officer number 2 that she had had "a glass of wine".  But it isn't illegal to drink and drive, so long as you're not impaired by the alcohol.  So the question was whether she was impaired by the alcohol.

Finally, our foreman said "should we take an impromptu vote?"  We agreed that we should.  We all agreed to not have the ballot be secret.  It came out this way: "Guilty", "Guilty", "Guilty", "Guilty", "Guilty", "Not guilty".

Juror number four (on my right in the courtroom, but last in the verbal vote) still had reasonable doubt.

Verdict

We took a break.  Several of the jurors went to the bathroom, and one or two stepped outside through a side door that was exclusively ours to each smoke a cigarette.  While this was going on, I made a list on the white board in the jury room.  The list went like this:

took a left turn across six lanes to wait for a lane blocked with stopped cars

stayed stopped upon traffic signal turning green

two driving infractions in two blocks

slurred speech

said she drank a glass of wine

peed on herself

stumbled twice on the short trip from her car to the police cruiser

couldn't understand simple instructions

(the cup)

The last item I added at another juror's request even though we had decided it was a non-issue.  I later realized that I had forgotten the red, watery eyes, but this oversight didn't impact the deliberations much.

Once everyone was back in the room, I turned to the dissenting juror.  "If you have a reasonable doubt, then you're doing the right thing in voting for 'not guilty'.  So my question is: 'What is the nature of your doubt?'"

"I just don't feel right convicting her on the say so of two officers."

"I see.  So you don't believe the officers told the truth about their observations?"

She thought a moment.  "No, I actually do believe they told the truth."

"Okay," I said, "so you believe that these items that I listed here were true?"

She nodded, a bit tentatively.

"Then you don't believe that these items, when taken together, add up to her being intoxicated enough to be impaired in driving?"

Once again she paused.  She was working it out in her head.  "Yes.  I think those do indicate that she was intoxicated."

So if she believed the items were true, and she believed that the items meant the defendant was impaired, then whence did her doubt originate?

She said "I still don't like the idea of convicting without any evidence beyond the testimony of two people."

I again told her that she was doing the right thing and that she should feel no pressure from the rest of us.  The foreman said "I know how you feel.  You're wanting to feel the case has been proven 'beyond the shadow of a doubt'.  But to convict, we only need it to be proven 'beyond a reasonable doubt'".

This hearkened us back to the words of the prosecutor during our panel questioning.  He had attempted to make a distinction between "beyond reasonable doubt" (a legal term), "beyond the shadow of a doubt" (not a legal term, but a higher standard than "beyond reasonable doubt"), and "beyond all doubt" (also not a legal term, but he considered this an even higher standard than "beyond a shadow of a doubt").

I went to the jury instructions because I thought I remembered something that would help us past this.  Among the jury instructions was a legal definition of "reasonable doubt".  I read aloud: "A reasonable doubt is one for which a reason exists..."  Then I said "so if you can articulate a reason for your doubt, then it is a reasonable doubt.  For example, if you believe that two officers' corroborating testimony is insufficient evidence to convince a reasonable person of the charge, then you still have a reasonable doubt."

Juror number 4 said she couldn't articulate any reason for her doubt; she didn't even bite on my suggested reason because, she reiterated, she believed the officers' testimony.

It took some time, still, to help her work through from "I don't have a reason for my doubt" to "I don't have a reasonable doubt" to "my verdict is 'guilty'".

Conclusion

Our foreman filled out the official document, and we called the red phone on the wall to notify the court clerk that we had arrived at a verdict.

We filed back into the courtroom and did our final dance of "jurors 1 and 2 sit while jurors 3 through 6 assemble to sit in unison".  The court clerk carried the verdict document to the judge, and the judge read it aloud.  Mary's face, which carried the same expression throughout the trial (exhausted and worried), showed no more reaction to the "guilty" verdict than to any of the foregoing events.

The judge asked each of us individually: "Is this the verdict of the panel?"  Yes.  "Is this your own individual verdict?"  Yes.

The judge excused us and we exited back to the jury room.  Our buxom, bleach-blonde court clerk excused us for the day, but told us we were welcome to wait for the end of courtroom proceedings and talk to the attorneys if we wanted to.  "How do we know if they want to talk to us?" I asked her.

"They'll always want to talk to you, if you're willing."

Conversation With Counsel

There are many details I've left out in the foregoing account.  I'll mention only two here, as they pertain to the post-trial conversation we had with counsel.

There was the issue of the second officer removing Mary from the first officer's police cruiser to his own, and whether Mary stumbled in that transit as she had in transit from her car to the first cruiser.  She didn't, but the prosecution hadn't asked the obvious follow-up question about how far apart the two police cruisers were at the time of that transfer, or how much assistance the officer gave her in getting her from one to the other.  When we mentioned this to him, he said "Thanks for pointing that out.  I was asleep at the switch on that one."

There was one presentation and at least one questioning of a witness by the Tom Welling defense attorney.  I gave him feedback about eye contact during his presentation, and Julianne then told me he is a second-year law student intern.  This more than anything else suggests to me that Julianne is a public defender who was provided to Mary without charge.

At this point, we were kicked out of the courtroom, and indeed out of the courthouse, because it was well past the 4:30 closing time.  Our conversation with the attorneys continued into the parking lot, and I found it a pleasant end to a fascinating day.

What Mary's sentence was I may never know.  I'm actually less curious about that than about the nature of the warrant that got her pulled over in the first place.  But I feel satisfied that we returned the right verdict.  And I'm glad I was able to participate in a legal system that dates, in one form or another, back in history to the ancient times when people actually knew who Raymond Burr was.