I was called to serve for jury duty for the Van Nuys Court. As a mediator and arbitrator I realize that it is part of my civic responsibility to be available to help the court system make fair and equitable decisions. As a businessman trying to be profitable in a recession/depression I am loathe to do anything that isn’t paying a decent wage and chews up a lot of my time. Well, of course, except writing for you for free. Er, and taking care of my family, helping my friends and whatever else comes up.
Up until 2001 here in California, if you were on a jury, you could, despite a judge’s instructions, vote the way you felt, even if it went against what you were instructed to steer clear of or take into account. If a judge thinks that you are going to try and nullify his instructions, he has the power to remove you from a jury. This has turned into an avenue for getting out of jury duty or at the very least to make it interesting. The purpose of jury nullification was to make the people the fourth branch of government. Doesn’t that sound cool and important? The reality in California is that they don’t want you to come up with your own conclusions and to be fair, I don’t blame them. Look at the O.J. Simpson criminal trial from a decade ago.
Without going into the details (I read them and they are worthy of several blogs), the decision for the California ruling was from a 1995 conviction of Arasheik W. Williams by a Santa Clara jury on charges of, false imprisonment, and assault and statutory assault to a minor. The kicker was that the Mr. William’s attorney told the jurors “a jury may, at times, afford a higher justice by refusing to enforce harsh laws.”
The jury foreman deep into the deliberations reported to the judge that juror James Kelly refused to discuss the statutory charge because “he believes the law is wrong.”
Kelly told Judge Paul Teilh he couldn’t consider the charge: “I simply cannot see staining a man, a young man, for the rest of his life for what I believe to be the wrong reason.”
Normally under the American legal system, juries need not explain how they arrived at their verdicts. Since the ruling, judges can, and do, remove jurors who make it known they will practice nullification.
In the Williams case, the judge removed Kelly from the jury, saying he had violated his oath of service that required the juror to follow the judge’s instructions. The jury, with an alternate in place, voted the next day to convict Williams, who was later, sentenced to six years in prison.
I want to take care of my civic requirement but at the same time I need to be working. My question is how to approach this if I get put on a panel for a jury. It could very well be that the the judge just seats us and that is that. If we have voir dire, see/say, where the attorneys get to ask us specific questions, if it is an interesting and short case and I feel I will be adding an unbiased opinion, I will do what I can to stay on the jury. Arianna may have something coming up as well and I will have to take that into consideration.
If it is something that raises my hackles, I may end up getting removed by virtue of my bias. Regular readers know that I don’t suffer ignorance or stupidity very well.
The risk is that I don’t want to get the ire of the judge so that he or she “sends a message” not to mess around. I generally am on my best behaviour because in a courtroom, the judge’s decision is law.
Literally. If you aren’t aware of it, the judge IS the law in his or her court. A reminder to that if you go to jury duty, make sure that you dress business professional to show respect for the court. Security measures, in case you weren’t aware, are similar to the airport so leave pocket knives and anything that might be construed as a weapon at home. Also, don’t ignore a summons to appear. You will have a bench warrant issued for your arrest.
More as this develops.
UPDATE: I was put on a panel and then dismissed. I think it was because of my friendships with law enforcement people and my feelings on certain things. The jury nullifcation point was brought up once and the judge said one of the questions that he had for me wasn’t it. I am not so sure but that was that.
The short story is back to business and good luck and good thoughts to people who are in the court system. As lumpy as the system is, it is still a pretty good system and there seemed to be enough potential jurors there who really wanted to serve to hopefully render a fair verdict. My best to everybody who works at the Van Nuys courts!
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Talking about Jury Duty and Jury Nullification