Some years ago – back at the time of the Simpson trial – I overheard someone say “voir dire … isn’t that Latin for jury tampering?”
I have been around a while now, in that time I’ve received notices for jury duty about once every 10 years. Okay, perhaps a bit less – I forget if I’ve had 4 or 5, counting the one I just got. Of those 4-5, only one actually got to the point of me showing up in the court room. All the other times if there was actually a case involved the defendant plead or a deal was struck before I ever got there. But that one time …
It was maybe 18 years ago, I was living in El Paso, Texas at the time. First of all, you have to understand it’s not like what you see on TV – sort of. That is, each state is different. Maybe what they show on TV is correct for California or New York, but I’ve never seen a TV show that accurately presented what Texas was like. Some of the differences can be rather drastic … and in a sense, that’s why I had to show up in court that time.
You see, even there the defendant had decided to plead guilty. But in Texas it is the jury that decides the punishment (within the range set down by law) rather than the judge, there are none of these “If your client pleads guilty to x, I’ll agree to only y years” type deals because the lawyers would have to convince 12 jurors to agree. We were going to have to consider any mitigating circumstances (factors such as “It was his first offense,” “he is a responsible husband and father,” and whatever else) or aggravating circumstances (callous behavior, multiple previous arrests, whatever) … well, whichever people from the jury pool were selected as actual jurors.
But that’s about where things went off the tracks. They did tell us that it was a drunk driving case with a fatality, then both lawyers interviewed the prospective jurors trying to see who might be sympathetic to their side (without overtly asking of course). I guess neither side was happy with what they heard – they couldn’t find enough people in the pool to fill a jury (there are 12 jurors).
So even though I have been in court once as a prospective juror, I have never actually heard a case. I’m sort of hoping my average holds up – the week in question this time happens to include my birthday … I can think of much better things to be doing that day.
