lawyer. Over the years St. Louis City has always been more difficult and federal jury duty was almost impossible. It got harder in St. Louis over the years and now it is a little bit of a struggle to get out of jury duty in the county but if you hire a lawyer who is a weasel (me), there is still the ability to avoid having to appear.
So... I got called. And having lectured so many people over so many years about the importance of serving (since I didn’t have to) because when smart people get out of jury duty it leaves a pool of stupider jurors. So I figured I would take my medecine and go and that I would get put on a panel amnd then during voir dire they would see i was a lawyer and I would be excused to go home. It is calculus like this that allows for me to be paid absurdly high rates to dole out this kind of always right genius.
Instead, it went like this. You get a summons and it tells you to show up at 8:30. It gives you parking instructions but I am a pretty big deal and I knew where I could park close and steal tokens from friends to get out. I am a cheap, bad person. But becuase of this I got there on time. I also know how to get through the security line quickly. I then went to the mysterious 6th floor. the land of the jurors. I had only gone there once before and that was to get someone else off jury duty. I arrived at 8:25 and stood in line and tore off part of my summons with my juror number (682) to put in a lanyard around my neck. As i expected they tell you 8:30 because they expect people to trickle in and they do... till nine. I don’t know why they know human nature so well but they calculate it just about right and by 9 the place was full with everyone having a seat. I would estimate the room holds a little over 200 people or maybe more. You all sit in chairs and it feels vaguely like you are waiting on a flight... perhaps to the strange and mysterious land of Division 20.
I was assuming that the people who actually serve on juries are like... The Island of Unwanted Toys. I was ½ right. After having gotten so many white middle calss businessman out of jury duty I expected a room full of unemployed women. It was asurprisingly diverse group but most of the men that are there tend to be older and younger. Not a lot of 50 year olds... or 51 year olds. Still it was a good group and probably reflected the County pretty well.
At 9:07 Judge Thea Sherry appeared and thanks us all for our service and then told us that they would be coming up in groups to get us throughout the day. It looked to be a busy day. You have nothing to do but I was smart enough to bring work and my iPhone so I was in touch tapping away and as I sat there an old bald man...(not that old and not that bald) a courtroom deputy came up and announced he would be calling a pool of 36 names. I was not one of them. Almost immediately another deputy came in and took a pool of 64 (I guess that was a bigger more complicated case that they expected to lose a lot of the pool to conflicts or because it was going to go on a long time). I didnt make that one either and it was odd that I felt a little despair. I realized that I wanted to get called and not just sit in that room all day. Weird. Another Deputy and another 32 people disappear and I am once again alone and then at 11:30 they release us for a two hour lunch. I scrambled home to get my wall charger for my phone figuring I was going to be there the rest of the day, grabbed a lunch and did some additional work and phone calls at work before hustling back. A reasonably productive 2 hours. I then grabbed a desk in the work area, got plugged in and then another Deputy rattling off another group of names and... the called me. I wanted to run up front like “The Price is Right” but I didnt. I was VERY COOL.So, the deputy announces that he is going to march us over to “The Justice Center” which always sounds positively Marxist to me. “You will now go to the Justice Center and receive justice”. Shades of Orwell for me since I do not see a lot of justice but this met we were being called on a criminal matter which sounded more interesting than a civil case. We went down to the 2nd floor, walked the ½ mile sky bridge and then up to the third floor and Division 40 and Judge Dennis Smith. They sat the first 14 (they were looking for 12 and I was number 21) and then they started “voir dire” where they ask you questions and try and decide if you are a good juror or a bad juror (are you a good witch or a bad witch?). They ask if you know anyone in the case or the lawyers. they tell you about the case and ask about any history you might have that might impact your abiity to be fair and impartial.
It turned out it was a DUI case. Huh? No one tries a DUI case. The defendant was a nice west county kid and a suit and he had an old school criminal defense lawyer. He looked kind of like a Walter Cronkite who had let himself go and had a big booming voice they used to call “stentorian”. His opponent though labeled a prosecutor was a private lawyer who serves as prosecutor for Town & Country. I of course hate the speed trap in Town On Country. I do not have the best relationships with policeman generally. The defendant himself really did not really look like a nice young man. He looked like kind of a rich kid, grown up and in a suit. I would guess he was about 24. So they start asking us questions and these 5 grumpy old white men who are on the panel in front of me start to make noises that they would have a hard time being imparial. One of them said:
“I don’t know. I just kind of assume if the cops pull someone over that they are probably guilty”.
then the other old white guys start to nod their heads and say “yeah I think that is right”. And the judge said, “I have previously instructed you that the defendant is innocent until proven guilty.” The first old white guy says “I guess I am just kind of jaded but I assume if the cops arrest someone he is guilty”.
The other old white me start to mumble that they too are jaded and really could not consider him innocent if he got arrested. So they all got struck. And between that and a couple of other abherrant personalities in the pool I was selcted as juror number 12. I thought I was OUT but I was IN and i got to serve. Monday was already gone to they sent us home and we were instructed to come back at the crack of 10:00 the next day for service.
The Judge was Dennis Smith and he is a nice guy and it seems to me like his job is hell as he only has criminal cases at this point and sadly in our court system that generally means drug and alcohol prosecutions. At this point in my life when I see the resources and time we waste on these issues in our courts it is kind of sickening and this case was no exception. I had heard of DUI cases getting certified for trial as a tactic to get a better deal, or on the hope that the State woul not be able to produce the policeman but seriously, what is there to argur about in most of these case, especially a DUI case. But Judge Smith runs a nice courtroom.It was one of the neww courtrooms in the Justice Center which we still refer to as new even though it is about ten years old. They showed us the jury room and then called us out... opening statements by the Town & Country prosecutor and the defense lawyer. The prosecutor made it clear he was going to show us a video and have the officer testify. The defense lawyer asked us to keep an open mind. The prosecutor put on the arresting officer who told us a tale of woe. He saw the car swerving, got behind it as it exited, it made a wide right onto Ballas and then he turned on his lights... then the driver made an illegal left onto the off ramp and then almost made it onto the highway before he finally pulled over.
Now I have watched Cops before. When my daughter was still at home and when my wife was working a lot, she and I would sit and watcher COPS. I had never seen it before. I had never watched any reality show before (they make you stupider). But it was fun. She and I would watch and bet as to whether it would be domestic violence, drug arrest, both... it was a bonding experience. But it really never occured to me that EVERY police stop is now recorded. The officer explained that it gets recorded constantly but then immediately erased, unless they flick on their lights and then it recaptures the previous 30 seconds and the tape runs and it is hooked up to their microphone so you hear...everything.
Cop walks up to the car. Starts barking whether the driver was trying to get them both killed. He looks in the car and then says, “please hand me the open containers”. The guy was with a pal. He sets two empties on the roof. He then asks him to get out of the car. He then gets annoyed because the guy cannot figure out where the door handle is. He finally reaches inside and then lets him out. He gets out and then he has him do the stupid human tricks. The defendant said he had not been drinking, then told the dreaded “two beers” lie, then apologized for being drunk, then thanked the officer for pulling him over. He could not walk the line. He could not do much of anything and finally stopped complying and he cuffed him and arrested him.
Another thing I did not know was that after you get put in the back of the car, the audio is recording everything you say and the guy said a lot of stupid things. Fortunately the police station was not that far and as they pull in to the station he fiunally realizes that he is arrested and screwed and he says he is going to refuse to take the breath test and he wants to see a lawyer... end of tape. But he knew he was screwed and watching it, looking around at the jury, we all knew he was screwed to. Tape is a powerful thing.
Then it was time for the defense... and he had nothing. So I immediately realized that there was nothing. The defendant must have had several priors and they must have offered him nothing but jail time. So they tried it I guess on the hope that maybe the cop would not show up, or the prosecutor would show up or... something. But the attorney did not relly even give it a workmanlike effort. It was kind of pathetic but... I get it and now my only worry was whether the rest of the jury got it. Closing arguments were... nothing.
We retired to the jury room. They knew I was a lawyer from voir dire and asked me to be the foreman and I respectfully declined. We elected a nice woman. She got us organized. Three charges. We started with the illegal lane change and (I didn’t give a shit) and since it was not on tape... they decided that there was a reasonable doubt. No one liked the cop anyway. Innocent. Second charge was driving the wrong way and the jury instruction said if we found that he was driving the vehicle, and it was going the wrong way, you must find him GUILTY! But we had one lady who was hung up on him not “intending” to go the wrong way. One out of 11 and the crowd started to get ugly and voices starting going up and I was sitting next to the foreman and said “lets see what we think about count III”. She said that was a good idea and we went around the table. Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty,Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty. That was easy. The video made it too easy. there was no way he wasn’t drunk. So we went back to count II and she wouldn’t change and once again it started to get ugly but I knew we had hung the guy and that driving the wrong way didn’t mean anything so I suggested we just be hung on count II and everyone agreed. And that is what we did.
We went back in. The foreperson announced and...we were thanked and dismissed. Neither the lawyers nor the defendant were surprised. And that was two days of my life I will never see again, and still, it is the greatest system, as bad as it is, in the greatest country in the world and the fact that young man and his lawyer could waste that many resources to get their constitutional right is really pretty awesome.
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