How to get off a jury
I recently was called up for jury duty. After hanging out in the pretty comfortable jury room (sofas, TV, etc), we went down to the courtroom and heard the charges -- oh, no, the guy is on trial for molesting several young girls.
Well, before I was kicked off ("for cause"), we were getting close to finishing jury selection but had gone through three days worth of call ups -- and had just added a fourth day (another 53 people after excuses).
One obvious way to get off is to be biased ("If he's accused, he's guilty") -- this was used by a fair number of women and some men. But the QA Engineer did it better. Much simplified, it went something like this:
Defense Attorney: Tell me about your job.
QAE: I'm in charge of quality. I used to be a process engineer. I'll use the same techniques I use at work to evaluate the evidence in this trial. See, I'll map out the charges, and the evidence to support the charges into a mathematical model.
Defense Attorney: That sounds complicated.
QAE: Well, it sounds complicated, but after I've explained it for two or three hours, it makes sense to everyone. I'll assign values to the different pieces of evidence. I'll use this to evaluate the evidence.
You look at what assertions depend upon what evidence, so if certain facts are disproved then you can analyze what higher level items are disproved and ....Am I talking too much?
Judge: No, this is interesting. I want to hear more. How do you assign the values?
(Long discussion, Judge gets the answer he wants: QAE does use his judgement to assign values.)
(Prosecutor asks questions, mentions she isn't mathematical at all, does not seem to like QAE approach at all).
QAE gets on the jury without challenge for cause -- and then, in a minute, is off again at the Prosecutor's next pre-emptory challenge.
One women was very prejudiced -- she admitted in court that she felt a certain ethnic group was less truthful.
Several people (both sexes) had mysterious migraine headaches that appeared when they were stressed, like listening to conflicting evidence.
At times, it seems we were going backwards, as people already on the jury (not removed for cause) tried to get off.
Then there was the paralegal who suddenly become prejudiced against the defense -- and changed her answers from her questionaire; the judge was not happy, and pointed out exactly how she changed her answers. I suspect she got verbally chewed out, but she did get removed for cause.
However, not everyone was a fruitcake. One guy was asked a question (where Yes meant he was biased), and answered "Well, I'd like to say Yes, but I have to say no." Prosecutor -- "Yes, I know you would like to be off the jury". He stayed got on and stayed on through the pre-emptory challenges.
The judge did a good job; he was very patient (much more patient than most of the jury pool), asked very clear and precise questions and had a sense of humor. A couple examples:
1. Prosecutor's cell phone starts ringing out in a merry melody. Judge: something similar to "Can you give me that tune for my phone?" Prosecutor, embarrased, quickly turns off cell phone.
2. Juror has problem staying alert. Judge: "Is my voice putting you to sleep?"
3. Me: "I'm concerned about the length of this trial. If it goes into August, I'll have problems because my wife is due to give birth at the end of August."
Judge: "At the rate we're going, we'll finish in December" (trial end is officially scheduled for end of July)
Overall, my opinion of people has gone down, but it was an interesting mix of people, and some people were quite impressive.
Tony
