Initially, being a juror is difficult and awkward because of the formality and unfamiliarity of the entire experience. Here you are forced to spend significant amounts of time with total strangers. The only common thread you have is the trial you are witnessing and that is the one thing you are not allowed to discuss with each other; and in my situation no one did.
Not having any experience in a courtroom or as a juror, I was surprised by several elements of the trial. I was surprised the judge discouraged us from taking notes. I was surprised that we spent so many hours of the day sitting in what felt like a holding room waiting for the show to begin. Little did we know that just outside the door in the courtroom the attorneys and judge were discussing the whereabouts of a witness to the murder. She was scheduled to testify and she had mysteriously disappeared. We also didn’t know that the judge and attorneys were discussing how to deal with fellow gang members of the defendant that were accused of following and intimidating an alternate juror on her way home. I was surprised they didn’t tell us these things while we waited for hours on end.
And on that last unbelievable day when the judge told us there were no more witnesses, I was surprised that it was over. I was surprised that there was no climax to the trial. There was not a moment in the trial where I said to myself: “Well that seals the deal. Now I know he did it.”
I didn’t feel like I had enough information. I didn’t think that one autopsy report confirming a death by shooting, one lunatic for an eye witness who says he saw the bullet fly through the air, and testimony from one terrified ex-girlfriend who had recently committed herself into a mental institution was enough to convict anyone.
The jury deliberated for three days. The beginning vote was eleven not guilty and one guilty. “Excuse me, Your Honor? Can you explain what ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ means again?” We received these instructions multiple times.
