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jrtomLast Friday and the following Tuesday, I served on a jury for the local municipal court.
Trigger warning: this account includes some details of someone getting roughed up a bit.
This is actually the first time I've ever been selected to serve. (I've been called up once before when I actually ended up showing up, plus others which were nonstarters for reasons such as "I no longer live there"; on that previous occasion everyone was repeatedly slaughtering my last name--including the judge--and I think that the defense attorney may have thought I was taking it personally when he did it, which I wasn't...anyway, I got removed from consideration after waiting around for 2.5 days. :P )
The charge was assault in the 4th degree, by a person on a police officer who was attempting to handcuff him prior to arresting him. We weren't actually told how that related to assault 1-3 in our jurisdiction; more on that later.
(In case anyone wonders, I am now free to talk about this case as much as I would like to, but I'm going to pseudonymize this account anyway as I don't think any useful purpose would be served by outing anyone involved. Plus I wasn't allowed to keep my notes and I don't remember everyone's names anyway.)
The bare bones of the story go like this:
A man (we'll call him M) and his girlfriend G had a (verbal) fight, and she left to go to a relative's house. He sent her a text message which said something like "I hope you're happy that the last you saw of me was during a screaming argument". She interpreted this as a suicide note, and (eventually? timing not clear) calls 911.
Meanwhile, he's gone to bed at 9 PM after a couple of glasses of wine and 2 Tylenol PM. [This was not discussed, but I would bet that M may have been slightly loopy thereafter as a result.]
Shortly after midnight, the cops show up. They knocked on the door, called; no answer. Cop #1 (J, 8-year veteran) goes around to the back, to find a door that's at least unlocked, if not slightly ajar; after calling/knocking again, he goes in.
M hears someone come in the house and comes out to see what's going on. J sees him, asks him to come into the dining room to talk about the situation (probably mentions the 911 call in there somewhere). Cop #2 (A, 4-year veteran) enters shortly thereafter.
J testified that he interpreted M's body language as aggressive (_and_ defensive). J and M discuss the situation for a few minutes, M clarifies that he was not attempting suicide and lists the aforementioned substances (wine, Tylenol PM). J testified that M did not appear to be showing any symptoms of drug overdose.
Testimony differs at this point: M testified that they got through this quickly enough that they started talking about other topics, e.g., the computer game that M had been playing earlier this evening (his computer is visible in the dining room); J has no recollection of such a conversation.
Meanwhile, A is searching the house for drugs and weapons, and finds a prescription bottle (which she apparently never reads, and is later revealed to be an anti-nausea medication...which is basically full). She comes out and starts asking M if he took any of it. His response: "Read the label" (since he's already said what he took). This is where it starts to go downhill, as they then riff on "Did you take any?" and "Read the [fucking] label!", more vehemently each time on both sides. At this point, M also starts asking the cops to leave his house, with no response given. Somewhere around in here A tells M that if he doesn't answer her question then she's going to take him down to the hospital to have his stomach pumped; it's not clear whether this had been intended as a threat or not, but it was taken as such.
Also meanwhile, G has shown up shortly after A (I think) and is in the kitchen, within hearing but not sight of J and A talking to M.
Again, testimony differs: The cops claim that they told M that they were going to cuff him for everyone's safety before the fire department paramedics arrive; G and M claim that the cops did not tell M any such thing, and simply took him down to the ground on the third occasion that M started to stand up from the table.
J and A take M down to the ground, face down; his hands go under him. They start trying to wrestle his hands around to his back. (Neither J, A, nor M are particularly large; the first two are 190# and 160# and shortish but solidly built; M is also fairly short and, I'd guess, 160-180#.) He struggles, even after knees to his thigh (and possibly his ribs), pressure point behind the ear, and cupped hand slap over the ear. (Note that A is a 'defensive tactics' instructor for the police.)
At one point, A's face and upper arm get clipped by M's arm as it's coming back around to the front; she'd been tugging on it with both hands. It's not clear whether this was intentional or not, although having tried it out during jury deliberations it's a lousy way to try to hit someone.
A and J testify that they thought M was trying to roll to his back (with one arm cuffed behind his back, note); J calls "Taser", they both back off, and he tases M in the back (still on the floor).
At this point M starts apologizing, stops resisting, lets them sit him in the chair again, and shortly thereafter the medics show up, briefly examine M (we never find out for what--taser aftereffects or possible OD signs--since they were not called to testify). Another cop shows up and the place is searched again, and shortly thereafter M and G are told that M is being arrested, which bemuses them both.
During the above, J asks A if she's OK, and she responds "yeah, I just got [accidentally] hit in the face and arm when his arm came around". Testimony differed on whether the word 'accidentally' was said.
Assault 4 requires intentional contact that is either 'harmful' or 'offensive' (as judged by a reasonable person).
The jury came around to the conclusion that the contact was not proven intentional beyond a reasonable doubt, hence M was not guilty. We were pretty much all already there by the time we convened; we spent most of our time chewing over some anomalies and puzzles from the testimony. (Such as: M was not charged with either resisting arrest nor obstructing justice, either of which would have seemed like easier charges to make stick.)
Afterwards we chatted with both attorneys, although mostly with the defense attorney. We were all taken somewhat aback by the facts that (a) M didn't seem to have [been granted by the police present] the right to ask the police to leave his house (4th Amendment, anyone?), and (b) they had the right to search it without a warrant. He concurred (surprise!), and we discussed the nuances of police criminal work versus community policing, various grey areas, and related topics.
The defense attorney also mentioned that he'd tried to make sure that we had the definitions of Assault 1-3 available to us, because--among other things--apparently assault on a police officer is always at least Assault 3, which means that the charge was (in a sense) incorrect. We didn't get a chance to ask the judge why he decided to leave that out, unfortunately, but I assume that he probably felt that it would be confusing and/or distracting. (I'm not sure how that would have affected our decision-making, frankly.)
Questions welcome. It was an interesting experience; I'm glad that I was able to do it, although it would have been nice if the second day of jury duty didn't overlap with my employer-granted holiday. :P Given some of the things that some of the other jurors had said before we started deliberating, I was gratified that we came to a consensus so quickly.
Trigger warning: this account includes some details of someone getting roughed up a bit.
This is actually the first time I've ever been selected to serve. (I've been called up once before when I actually ended up showing up, plus others which were nonstarters for reasons such as "I no longer live there"; on that previous occasion everyone was repeatedly slaughtering my last name--including the judge--and I think that the defense attorney may have thought I was taking it personally when he did it, which I wasn't...anyway, I got removed from consideration after waiting around for 2.5 days. :P )
The charge was assault in the 4th degree, by a person on a police officer who was attempting to handcuff him prior to arresting him. We weren't actually told how that related to assault 1-3 in our jurisdiction; more on that later.
(In case anyone wonders, I am now free to talk about this case as much as I would like to, but I'm going to pseudonymize this account anyway as I don't think any useful purpose would be served by outing anyone involved. Plus I wasn't allowed to keep my notes and I don't remember everyone's names anyway.)
The bare bones of the story go like this:
A man (we'll call him M) and his girlfriend G had a (verbal) fight, and she left to go to a relative's house. He sent her a text message which said something like "I hope you're happy that the last you saw of me was during a screaming argument". She interpreted this as a suicide note, and (eventually? timing not clear) calls 911.
Meanwhile, he's gone to bed at 9 PM after a couple of glasses of wine and 2 Tylenol PM. [This was not discussed, but I would bet that M may have been slightly loopy thereafter as a result.]
Shortly after midnight, the cops show up. They knocked on the door, called; no answer. Cop #1 (J, 8-year veteran) goes around to the back, to find a door that's at least unlocked, if not slightly ajar; after calling/knocking again, he goes in.
M hears someone come in the house and comes out to see what's going on. J sees him, asks him to come into the dining room to talk about the situation (probably mentions the 911 call in there somewhere). Cop #2 (A, 4-year veteran) enters shortly thereafter.
J testified that he interpreted M's body language as aggressive (_and_ defensive). J and M discuss the situation for a few minutes, M clarifies that he was not attempting suicide and lists the aforementioned substances (wine, Tylenol PM). J testified that M did not appear to be showing any symptoms of drug overdose.
Testimony differs at this point: M testified that they got through this quickly enough that they started talking about other topics, e.g., the computer game that M had been playing earlier this evening (his computer is visible in the dining room); J has no recollection of such a conversation.
Meanwhile, A is searching the house for drugs and weapons, and finds a prescription bottle (which she apparently never reads, and is later revealed to be an anti-nausea medication...which is basically full). She comes out and starts asking M if he took any of it. His response: "Read the label" (since he's already said what he took). This is where it starts to go downhill, as they then riff on "Did you take any?" and "Read the [fucking] label!", more vehemently each time on both sides. At this point, M also starts asking the cops to leave his house, with no response given. Somewhere around in here A tells M that if he doesn't answer her question then she's going to take him down to the hospital to have his stomach pumped; it's not clear whether this had been intended as a threat or not, but it was taken as such.
Also meanwhile, G has shown up shortly after A (I think) and is in the kitchen, within hearing but not sight of J and A talking to M.
Again, testimony differs: The cops claim that they told M that they were going to cuff him for everyone's safety before the fire department paramedics arrive; G and M claim that the cops did not tell M any such thing, and simply took him down to the ground on the third occasion that M started to stand up from the table.
J and A take M down to the ground, face down; his hands go under him. They start trying to wrestle his hands around to his back. (Neither J, A, nor M are particularly large; the first two are 190# and 160# and shortish but solidly built; M is also fairly short and, I'd guess, 160-180#.) He struggles, even after knees to his thigh (and possibly his ribs), pressure point behind the ear, and cupped hand slap over the ear. (Note that A is a 'defensive tactics' instructor for the police.)
At one point, A's face and upper arm get clipped by M's arm as it's coming back around to the front; she'd been tugging on it with both hands. It's not clear whether this was intentional or not, although having tried it out during jury deliberations it's a lousy way to try to hit someone.
A and J testify that they thought M was trying to roll to his back (with one arm cuffed behind his back, note); J calls "Taser", they both back off, and he tases M in the back (still on the floor).
At this point M starts apologizing, stops resisting, lets them sit him in the chair again, and shortly thereafter the medics show up, briefly examine M (we never find out for what--taser aftereffects or possible OD signs--since they were not called to testify). Another cop shows up and the place is searched again, and shortly thereafter M and G are told that M is being arrested, which bemuses them both.
During the above, J asks A if she's OK, and she responds "yeah, I just got [accidentally] hit in the face and arm when his arm came around". Testimony differed on whether the word 'accidentally' was said.
Assault 4 requires intentional contact that is either 'harmful' or 'offensive' (as judged by a reasonable person).
The jury came around to the conclusion that the contact was not proven intentional beyond a reasonable doubt, hence M was not guilty. We were pretty much all already there by the time we convened; we spent most of our time chewing over some anomalies and puzzles from the testimony. (Such as: M was not charged with either resisting arrest nor obstructing justice, either of which would have seemed like easier charges to make stick.)
Afterwards we chatted with both attorneys, although mostly with the defense attorney. We were all taken somewhat aback by the facts that (a) M didn't seem to have [been granted by the police present] the right to ask the police to leave his house (4th Amendment, anyone?), and (b) they had the right to search it without a warrant. He concurred (surprise!), and we discussed the nuances of police criminal work versus community policing, various grey areas, and related topics.
The defense attorney also mentioned that he'd tried to make sure that we had the definitions of Assault 1-3 available to us, because--among other things--apparently assault on a police officer is always at least Assault 3, which means that the charge was (in a sense) incorrect. We didn't get a chance to ask the judge why he decided to leave that out, unfortunately, but I assume that he probably felt that it would be confusing and/or distracting. (I'm not sure how that would have affected our decision-making, frankly.)
Questions welcome. It was an interesting experience; I'm glad that I was able to do it, although it would have been nice if the second day of jury duty didn't overlap with my employer-granted holiday. :P Given some of the things that some of the other jurors had said before we started deliberating, I was gratified that we came to a consensus so quickly.
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Jury
Date: 11 July 2010 07:52 (UTC)Re: Jury
Date: 11 July 2010 21:55 (UTC)And, yeah, I would like to see more thoughtful people on juries.
(no subject)
Date: 11 July 2010 21:49 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 11 July 2010 21:52 (UTC)