{"id":661,"date":"2010-08-27T00:02:32","date_gmt":"2010-08-27T06:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=661"},"modified":"2010-08-27T00:02:32","modified_gmt":"2010-08-27T06:02:32","slug":"reaching-a-verdict-my-day-as-a-juror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=661","title":{"rendered":"Reaching A Verdict: My Day As A Juror"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“We, the jury, find the defendant, NOT GUILTY.”\u00a0 As the foreperson for the jury, I had the responsibility to read the unanimous verdict that my fellow jurors and I had arrived at after deliberating\u00a0behind closed doors for almost an hour\u00a0.\u00a0 The defendant, standing next to his attorney, was obviously relieved and his family began to shed tears of joy.\u00a0 An ordeal that began for this man\u00a0five months\u00a0prior, with\u00a0his arrest for driving under the influence of drugs, ended when a jury of his peers found him not guilty of the crime for which he had been charged.<\/p>\n

My involvement in the case really began when I received a jury summons in March, the same month that the defendant was arrested.\u00a0 Little did either of us know that our paths would cross on this fateful day in late August.\u00a0 As a former attorney, I\u00a0have\u00a0a great love and respect for the law and the courts.\u00a0 While our American system of justice is not perfect, I believe our legal system, especially for those accused of a crime, is the best in the world, bar none!\u00a0 I had never been summoned for jury duty before.\u00a0 And, even though I knew the odds of a lawyer-turned-pastor actually being picked to serve on a jury were remote, I was nonetheless excited to just\u00a0have the opportunity to serve.\u00a0 But, I almost missed my chance.\u00a0 Again!<\/p>\n

My jury panel, a group of about 40 people, is scheduled for jury duty on select Thursdays over a six month period, from April 1 — September 30.\u00a0\u00a0The night\u00a0before our\u00a0jury panel is scheduled to appear, we must call the Magistrate Court\u00a0to listen to a recorded message to confirm whether or not we are needed for that particular day.\u00a0 Last Thursday, I received a letter in the mail from the\u00a0Court informing me that I had not shown up for jury duty on Tuesday.\u00a0 I was mortified.\u00a0 This must be a mistake.\u00a0 I only have jury duty on Thursdays.\u00a0 I went back to my office and reviewed the\u00a0paper calendar that I had received from the Clerk of Court’s office, only to discover that I had missed the Tuesday\u00a0jury service.\u00a0 In disbelief, I wrote a letter to the judge to\u00a0explain my absence and ask that he not hold me in contempt of court.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to Thursday, August 26, 2010.\u00a0 At 8:55 a.m., I was talking to my mom on the phone when it suddenly hit me that I had not called the court the night before to check if I\u00a0needed to show up for\u00a0jury duty.\u00a0\u00a0Frantically, I got off the phone, jumped in the car and headed straight for the courthouse.\u00a0\u00a0On the way, I prayed that the judge would excuse my tardiness.\u00a0 As I arrived at the courthouse at 9:02 a.m., the parking lot was full.\u00a0 I hurried into the building, only to discover that there were only a few people waiting in the lobby.\u00a0\u00a0I just knew that I was late and that\u00a0all the prospective jurors were already inside the courtroom being questioned by the attorneys.\u00a0 As I walked up to the clerk’s window, I asked if Panel III was scheduled for today.\u00a0 “Yes,” she\u00a0said, but before\u00a0my heart could sink, she uttered what were the most wonderful words I could have heard that morning.\u00a0 “Please sign in at the front and have a seat.\u00a0 We’ll be ready to start at 9:30.”\u00a0 I was 25 minutes early.\u00a0 Thank you, Lord, for\u00a0Your mercy and grace!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, at about 9:30 a.m., we were all ushered into the courtroom for voir dire (questioning by the State’s Attorney and the Defense Attorney).\u00a0 Each of us had a pre-assigned seat in the gallery.\u00a0 As the bailiff told pointed to the front row, aisle seat, I began to think that there might be a reason for the particular seating arrangement.\u00a0 After about 30 minutes of questioning to determine which potential jurors should be excused and which ones should be considered for service on this trial, we were all told to wait in the lobby until the attorneys had picked the jury members.<\/p>\n

Waiting to hear who would be called, I thought that perhaps my front row seat would be advantageous.\u00a0 Sure enough, the first name called was mine.\u00a0 Even though the odds of my serving were slim to none, on this day I was destined to serve.\u00a0 I don’t think things happen by accident or coincidence.\u00a0 I was called to serve on this particular\u00a0jury pool for this particular trial on\u00a0this particular day.<\/p>\n

After listening to the opening arguments,\u00a0direct and cross-examination of the State’s witnesses and the Defense’s witnesses, closing arguments, and the Judge’s jury instructions, the five other jurors and I retired to the jury room to deliberate whether the defendant was guilty or not guilty.\u00a0 After an hour, we\u00a0arrived at\u00a0a unanimous verdict of not guilty.\u00a0 In the end, we concluded\u00a0that the State had not met its burden to prove the defendant guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n

As the Judge thanked us for our service, we filed out of the courtroom, discharged from our jury duty.\u00a0 What a humbling experience.\u00a0I may never have the opportunity to serve on another jury, but\u00a0on this day, I had the privilege to fulfill one of the greatest civic responsibilities we have as Americans.\u00a0 The\u00a0presumption of innocence and the right to a jury trial are some of America’s greatest constitutional safeguards to our liberty.\u00a0 I’ve always believed that.\u00a0 Now I know it in a personal way.\u00a0 And, I wouldn’t trade my day as a juror for anything in the world!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We, the jury, find the defendant, NOT GUILTY.”\u00a0 As the foreperson for the jury, I had the responsibility to read the unanimous verdict that my fellow jurors and I had arrived at after deliberating\u00a0behind closed doors for almost an hour\u00a0.\u00a0 The defendant, standing next to his attorney, was obviously relieved and his family began to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,32],"tags":[106,297,466,575,730,843,999,1026],"class_list":["post-661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedoms","category-miscellaneous","tag-attorney","tag-defendant","tag-guilty","tag-jury","tag-not-guilty","tag-right-to-a-jury-trial","tag-trial","tag-verdict"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-aF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}