Mystery Novelist June Shaw: My Jury Duty Experience
I always said I would hate to serve on a jury. I would never want to be responsible for sending a person to prison.
Boy, did my thoughts on that change.
I was called three times to be a possible juror for petit juries, juries of twelve people that decide on one case. The first time I went to the court house, where a room was filled with people milling about, hoping their names wouldn’t be called. Within two hours, we were told the case was dismissed. We could pick up a check for our time spent there.
The next time I was brought all the way into the courtroom. I’d never been in one before and was really nervous. One attorney questioned me, liked my answers, and accepted me as a juror. The defendant’s attorney asked whether I had strong feelings one way or the other about drug use. I said yes, I hated it and explained why. That attorney sent me packing.
The third time, I was chosen. The judge put us at ease, giving us detailed explanations about the case. A man was charged with armed robbery. He did not have a weapon, but he went into a drugstore, put his finger straight out in his coat pocket, and told everyone he had a gun. He wanted money and drugs. The judge said that was armed robbery, even with no real weapon. Making others “think” you have a weapon is the same as having one. The defendant was captured right after he left the drugstore.
So what was the case? He was pleading not guilty because he was high on drugs when he committed the crime. I knew then that if I was the only one saying so, he was guilty. It took two days of testimony, which was interesting, and then we all found him guilty.
I’ve never been called to serve on a jury again but would love to. It was a great experience.
June Shaw’s Bio: For more about June and her second novel, Killer Cousins, visit her website at www.juneshaw.com.
June, I was skeptical about the statement that a finger in a pocket could constitute armed robbery, so I searched and found that there seems to be some disagreement among the various U.S. states about this. For example, according to lawyer Lloyd Duhaime at http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/A/ArmedRobbery.aspx the state of Illinois defines it as using a weapon, not also pretending to use one. But "The Free Dictionary" at http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/armed+robbery says that the mere threat of using a weapon is sufficient. It reminds of Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run" in which he robs a bank with a gun, but gives the teller an unreadable note, which looks more like "I have a gub," than "I have a gun." I wonder if the robber in your case had misspelled his note but not stuck his hand in his pocket whether that would still be armed robbery.
Funny, Catherine. The defendent in the trial where I served did not write a note. It's interesting to know that the law about this differs in various states. I live in Louisiana.
I've served on two juries, both were murder cases. In one we convicted, in the other we did not. I agree, it's a fascinating process and it helped me secure my belief in the system. I was at the time a college faculty and a published author. Neither characteristic gave pause to any attorney or the judges. Gives the boot to the lies about who gets rejected for duty, doesn't it?
I'm sure I would be more hesitant to serve on a jury for a murder case, but it certainly would be interesting. I'm sure your experiences were, Carl.
I was a cop for 21 years in Suffolk County, Long Island. I'm surprised they still went through with charging the defendant with "armed" robbery. In NYS, there are three degrees of Robbery, and first degree would be if he had a gun. If it turns out it was just his finger, it would drop down to Robbery 3rd. He'd still get charged, but just with a less severe crime. The bad guys know this. Unfortunately, when the victim is getting robbed, they don't have the luxury of knowing that he/she really doesn't have a weapon, so they must act accordingly.
There's always a controversy after promotional exams over the test questions involving the correct charge, when you must consider what a person gets charged with vs. what they'd be convicted of; in the scenario of your jury experience, the cops might charge him with Robbery 1 (because of the appearance of a weapon), but the DA's office would drop the charge down to Robbery 3rd and go to trial on that. Sometimes, however, the cops skip ahead to reality (he didn't really have a gun) and charge him with the lesser robbery offense.
I served on a jury for a civil case regarding a car accident. I was surprised when they chose me, as I was used to assigning "blame" so to speak when deciding the apparent contributing factors when I was on patrol handling accidents. Jury duty was a worthwhile experience and I'll always remember it.
What a difference in laws in each state! Our varying experiences let writers know that we really need to do our homework when writing about crimes in different places.
I have always wanted to serve on a jury. Was called a few times recently only to have the cases settle before the trial started. I keep imagining it will be exciting and meaningful like Twelve Angry Men. :-)