Grand Jury

Meet the new foreperson for one of the three Grand Juries of the Multnomah County court.

I reported for jury duty on Monday expecting to be out for a day or two. But my name was called with the first pool, which happened to be a pool for two grand juries. The grand jury is a 28 day commitment, either for half a day or a full day, Monday through Friday. You're only given a small stipend, and I probably could have begged off since my work doesn't compensate me for jury duty like some do, but since I managed to get on the jury that only requires you from 8 am to noon, I didn't fight it.

And then I volunteered to be foreperson.

So today was my second day of cases. I'll probably post again at the end of my 28 days when I'm more of an expert on the process (since I probably won't be posting much in between, since blogging about jury duty is obviously not gonna fly, and I won't have time to think about much else since I'm planning to cram 32 hours a week of work into my spare time). But for those of you who, like me, were not previously familiar with the concept of a grand jury, here's a little introduction.

A grand jury hears multiple cases each day, something like 120-200 over 28 days. The selection was pretty much just based on who could sacrifice their time to serve (i.e. you aren't the sole proprietor of your business, or a nursing mother, or you wouldn't experience extreme financial hardship because your work doesn't compensate you for jury duty). Grand Jurors don't actually hear trials; we're the ones who indict the case to be taken to court. We hear testimony from the prosecution's witnesses and decide "true" or "not true" based on whether we see that evidence as being enough to potentially convict the defendant, without taking into account any counter-evidence or defense. We have our own grand jury room, and the deputy district attorneys and their witnesses come to us. Some cases take as little as ten minutes. Today we had a couple that lasted over an hour, which put us behind schedule and meant we stayed 'til after 1 pm (at least they brought in lunch for us).

As foreperson, my duties are to arrive slightly early to unlock the jury room, answer the phone when the Grand Jury staff calls us, call them if we have issues or questions, swear in witnesses (with the same oath witnesses take in a court of law), and to try to basically moderate the questioning and voting. As jurors we get to ask the witnesses questions after the D.A. has finished. I also sign the vote tally slips (which the alternate foreperson fills out with the charges and our total vote) and the indictments after the staff has prepared them, which means even though we sometimes get out early due to canceled cases, I almost always will have to stay to sign indictments, because they have to go to the judge in the afternoon. For example, our cases were all canceled tomorrow, but I will be going to the courthouse in the afternoon just to sign indictments.

We've only had a handful of cases over the past couple days. We were under the impression that mostly we'd be hearing drug cases, but those have been the minority so far. Drug cases actually seem to be the most simple, because usually there is physical evidence involved and that alone is generally considered enough to take a case to trial. But we had a mixture of different cases today, which made it a more difficult day. Largely my fellow jurors are very on top of it and very nice as well. I got a little flak today from one of them, though, who thought I was trying to quash her opinions and questions, when my goal was to make sure we stay on track, and observe such guidelines as only asking questions that are actually pertinent to the specific charges. It's challenging, because there is an inclination to learn as much as possible, out of curiosity if not out of principle, even though a lot of the information does not relate to whether or not the defendant most likely broke the law. There is also a sort of inclination to be an advocate for the defendant, because we're only hearing from the prosecution and the witnesses, but we have to remember that if indicted the defendant will have their day in court and it is not our job to speculate about what defense they may have.

Anyway, I think next week will be easier, because we're all still getting the hang of things, and I'm hoping today was the most challenging we'll have. Even the D.A. who oriented us had difficulty defining exactly what we're looking for when we listen to evidence. For instance, if you are not absolutely sure the defendant has broken the law, do you vote "not true"? I don't personally think so, but a couple of the other jurors do. Luckily there are seven of us and 5-2 is enough to pass. Unfortunately, 4-3 will not. Knock on wood, despite the jurors who think their position is an opportunity to make a political statement about what they think of our justice system, we haven't had any of those yet.

Sorry if I sound bitter. I have a migraine, and I think the long days (at the courthouse slightly before 8 am, biking to work from downtown around noon, then working straight through until 6 pm) are starting to wear on me already.