On Wednesday I was summoned to jury duty at the Los Angeles Criminal Court in downtown LA. Things have been rather slow at work, so I was actually looking forward to the change of scenery. Little did I know that I was about to witness real life human drama with perhaps the most famous judge in the world!
For those of you who have never been called for jury duty, here's how it works. Reporting time is 7:45 am at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown LA. Keep in mind that I typically don't wake up until 8am and live about 5 minutes away from my job. So that part was rather rough. You then go to the jury selection room, where about 450 of your "peers" - people who will be deciding the life or death fate of alleged criminals - are waiting for instructions and asking questions about filling out the juror identification form (sample questions: Name, Address, Occupation). Believe you me, if I ever find myself on the other side of the law - I'll be plea bargaining no matter what the charge.
Around 10:30am, my name was called to report to room 110 on the 9th floor. We had been told earlier that the 9th floor was "high security" so there was a moment where I wondered was I being called to the Phil Spector case. Instead, I was ushered into the court room of the Honorable Judge Lance A Ito.
The judge explained that this case was about an alleged criminal threat. The case would include discussions of domestic abuse, street gangs - specifically the 18th Street Gang, the Rampart division of the LAPD, illegal aliens, and child witnesses. The defendant was sitting at the defense table alongside his lawyer and a Spanish translator (who switched out every 20 minutes with another woman). The prosecutor sat alone.
They then randomly selected 12 people to go into the juror box to begin the voir dire process. Judge Ito interviewed each potential juror with the same set of questions and then each lawyer had an opportunity to ask follow up questions. After all 12 were interviewed, the lawyers could then begin excusing people using their peremptory challenges and replace them with another randomly selected potential juror sitting in the audience. I'm unclear how many challenges each lawyer got but I'd guess that they churned through about 30 potential jurors in the day and a half I was there before they settled on the 12 jurors and 2 alternates.
Though I sat as poised and pretty as I know how, I was unfortunately never called to the box. Instead, I spent 5 hours glued to the edge of my seat listening as these potential jurors shared their life stories on record. Here were some of the highlights:
- 2 women had been kidnapped
- 3 women had been held up at gunpoint, and 2 of those were at flower shops
- A woman listed beekeeping as a hobby
- A man said that he had been in an "anonymous setting" where people shared their stories of domestic abuse. The prosecutor actually asked the man to further clarify the type of "anonymous setting" he was talking about. The juror rested his head on the microphone, paused for a moment, then looked up and said, "in this anonymous setting, people come together to share their experiences with alcohol and substance abuse." He was excused at the next opportunity.
- A woman said she had "mixed" feelings about illegal aliens. When pressed by Judge Ito to explain what she meant by "mixed," she explained, "I don't think they should be in our country." I laughed out loud. So did the Judge. He then said, "That's not a mixed feeling." She shrugged and explained that she felt "illegals shouldn't be clogging up our court system. We should just send them back home. I mean, have you ever seen how they treat Americans in Mexico? Why are we being so good to them?" She was excused very soon thereafter.
- A man's 16 year old son had been jumped by a gang member. His son "fingered the gang banger" and the case was brought to court. However, the gang member didn't show up for the court hearing. The man said that he moved his family the very next day and it was the best decision he's ever made in his entire life.
- That same man had been at the Los Angeles Halloween party in 2000 when a policeman shot and killed an actor who pointed a fake gun at him. Interestingly, they kept this man on the jury.
- A man - who I firmly believe was attempting to use the shock factor to get out of jury service - said that the defendant looked exactly like a gang member who had threatened him just 4 weeks prior. Judge Ito wasn't buying his story either and asked if he had reported the crime. Of course he hadn't. He then went onto say that he felt the LAPD was the "most racist organization in the entire country." I then was witness to some interesting poker-like lawyer tactics. The defense lawyer took a gamble on this guy and decided to accept the current jury which then forced the hand of the prosecutor to excuse him, giving the defense lawyer one more peremptory challenge than the prosecutor.
- There was a man who described himself as a "third generation LA movie actor" but refused to list what movies he'd been in because he wanted to keep his anonymity.
- There was an Asian man who had been in the US for 20 years but didn't understand many of the questions that the Judge was asking him. The Judge looked really pissed off when he excused the juror himself because he was having "issues with his credibility." He told the man to go back to the jury selection room; instead he came and sat back down in the audience with us. After someone explained to him that he needed to leave, the Judge seemed much more at ease. Judge Ito explained that it's very common for people to use the "I don't understand English so good" excuse to get out of jury service. If they are faking, they'll typically jet out the door without looking back when they are excused. Those that are telling the truth, like this man had been, always seem confused and don't understand what's expected of them. I think the Judge was relieved that he had made the right call and this guy wasn't just taking him for a ride.
- Two other people were excused by the Judge - both because they had experiences that were too close to the criminal charge at hand for them to be able to be fair and unbiased in their decision making.
But by far my absolute favorite part of the whole experience was on the 2nd day (we were called back on Thursday because they hadn't been able to solidify a jury on Wednesday) when Judge Ito was preparing to thank and excuse those of us in the audience that were no longer needed now that the jury had been picked. He explained that he had a confession:
"I have three cameras in this courtroom [points to them, two of which were hidden] and a bank of monitors on my desk [not visible from my audience vantage point] to keep an eye on what's going on in my courtroom. As it turns out, I ask a lot of the same questions over and over throughout this process. So to entertain myself, I sometimes watch the monitors. [HE LOOKS RIGHT AT ME, NOW] And there are 2 of you who have had the most amazing reactions during this process. I can tell you were enjoying yourself as much as I am. I'm sorry I won't get to meet you but I hope that if you are ever called back to jury service you'll make my way back into my courtroom."
Yes, Judge Ito and I had a moment. It makes me laugh to think that he watched me with amusement as I rolled my eyes when someone lied, or tried to stifle a laugh when someone said something incredibly racist, or got wide eyed when people talked about their personal experiences as victims of crimes.
Though I wasn't given the opportunity to serve my civic duty by sentencing someone to life in prison, I do happily report that jury duty was an entertaining pleasure more akin to watching reality TV than the monotonous torture everyone makes it out to be.
