Amy the Juror: Part 3

[AmySly]

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of my jury duty story first!

After our cell phones were taken, our bailiff, Annie, explained the details of how things were going to go during the deliberation process. We could no longer talk to Annie or the other bailiffs at all. If we needed anything (legal questions or if we were hungry, etc.), we were to write it down on a piece of paper and knock on the door. A bailiff would come and take the note and come back with the answer on the note within a few minutes. Then, all of the evidence was brought into the room and we were left alone.

At first, it was just a huge relief that we could actually talk about the case with one another after days of having to avoid the topic. Soon thereafter, we realized that we needed to select a foreman and have a bit of order to our conversations. There were only a few people who said they'd be willing to be the foreman so it was easy to go from there and choose someone. Once our foreman (er, excuse me, foreWOMAN) was chosen, we began reading through all of the paperwork that was given to us by the judge.

We had 4 decisions to make regarding the verdict. First, we had to decide if the defendant was guilty of aggravated kidnapping. Then, we had to decide if it was first degree murder. Third, we had to decide if there were mitigating circumstances that would make it second degree murder instead. And finally, we had to decide if the murder was extremely heinous or not. It was overwhelming to wade through the legalese and try to understand exactly what the criteria meant so that we could come to unanimous agreements about each item.

We looked through the evidence first-hand and began discussing what we all believed to be true – how much weight we should give to certain testimonies and the statements made by the defendant about the incident. Before we knew it, it was after 6 p.m. and we became preoccupied with worries that our families did not know that we were deliberating. We were also getting hungry. So, we sent our first note to Annie asking her to call all of our families to notify them that we were still deliberating (and to ask for dinner to be ordered). A few minutes later, we received a note stating that dinner was ordered and that our families would be called after dinner.

So, we went back to deliberating until the food came. After dinner, Annie took the names and phone numbers of the people we wanted her to call. She said she would only be making one phone call and that she would be telling our families that there was the possibility that we would be sequestered in a hotel overnight if necessary!

Audio: Phone call from Sheriff letting Steve know Amy was spending the night!

This information came as a shock, as none of us had prepared for that possibility. But we tried not to think about that too much in the hopes that we would finish our deliberations that evening. However, we also wanted to be thorough and not rush into any decisions because of our own selfish desires to go home that night. We had a man's life in our hands and weren't about to take that lightly.

As we continued to deliberate, we realized that we were missing several exhibits that were presented in court including several police reports. We wrote notes asking for those exhibits and were sent a cryptic message back: "You have all of the evidence you need". I'm pretty sure that's legalese for "no"! We learned later that while those documents were presented to witnesses in court, they were not officially entered into evidence; therefore, we were not able to view them. All the more reason why our notes were so important. Myself and a handful of other people took detailed notes which proved to be very useful.

By 9:30 p.m., we had come to a unanimous decision to find the defendant guilty of aggravated kidnapping and we were moving on to talk about first degree murder. Again, it was difficult to interpret the legalese a bit and we were in the midst of reading through it when Annie came in and told us to stop deliberating. We were going to spend the night in a hotel! Holy cow!!!

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[FernLaplante]

This is like a Law & Order!

[AmySly]

Originally Posted by FernLaplante

This is like a Law & Order!

Even crazier since it was real life. Not just a TV drama. Also, in Law & Order, they make it seem as if the arrest and the court convictions happen right after each other. In this case, the murder happened almost 5 years ago!!!