Thursday is day four and we start the trial. There are fourteen of us because there are two alternates. We don't know who the alternates are until after closing arguments, at that point two of us get dismissed so the twelve remaining can begin deliberation. Oh boy, ok here we go.
I am juror number one. We each have an envelope with our number on it at our chairs, chairs are assigned by number too so that's where you always sit. I had a column by me, I was happy about that, it meant only half of the courtroom was looking at me and the line of news people on one side of the courtroom were the other side of my column. News people aren't allowed to take pictures or video of jurors and they are watched carefully to see that they don't, thank goodness. In our envelope is our note pad, we take notes and our note pad stays in the courtroom until we have to deliberate and is locked up at night. The jurors aren't allowed to talk about the case with each other or anyone else. By now, I haven't read a paper or watched the news for four days.
Mostly this first day we are sitting in the jury room waiting. We start two hours after we arrive, hear opening arguments and see our first bits of real information--not evidence but the "story" as presented by prosecution and defense. We are dismissed from the courtroom for another hour after this and return to be dismissed for lunch. I brought my lunch, as planned with two other women on the jury, we have to wear jury tags everywhere we go and the idea of walking a couple blocks to a restaurant with a big X on me didn't appeal really. Since we are spending the majority of our time in a courtroom or in a windowless jury room we decided to eat outside at some picnic tables.
I need to add some things here. The courtroom is guarded. There are two guards for the defendant, two bailiffs at each of the doors and two bailiffs on the other side of my column. Then there is a bailiff that sits up in between the witness stand and us. He's our bailiff who helps us with whatever we need and comes and talks to us when there is a bench conference between attorneys and the judge (so we don't overhear.) So there are nine armed people in this courtroom in addition to it being pretty full of families and other interested folks. I'm really starting to wonder now about just who it is I'm dealing with here.
Beginning the first day of trial we park in a designated area and we are told to arrive in the morning at a specific 15 minute interval. When we arrive there are sheriffs deputy's outside watching for us. We enter through a locked employee door that takes a key card to unlock to come in AND go out. We are wanded, our belongings x-rayed (shoes too) and when we enter the jury room we go in a locked door, down a short hall, in another locked door to the jury room. I started wearing my plastic "its a belt" so I wouldn't have to take my belt off every time I entered the building--my pants kept falling down while I was trying to put my shoes on!
So yeah, this is my world for as long as this trial takes, 13 strangers, lots of guards, locked doors. K, back to lunch. We wait to be let out and tell them we are eating outside at the picnic tables across from our entrance door. Off we go. While we're eating our lunch and getting to know each other we realize there is a deputy outside, he's guarding us. My state of mind has been set to CYA (cover your ass) as it is--all this guarding only heightens that state of mind.
We stay outside as long as we can, with only short "comfort breaks" where I convinced non-smokers to go outside with smokers so we all could have sunshine and fresh air, and lunch time, we are inside a building so we take full advantage of the whole hour to be outside. That's pretty much how it goes for all the remaining days of the trial. A couple of times when we had much longer breaks we walked a block away for coffee, other than that we three stayed right there with our guards.
I think that's all the really wordy stuff so I'll make a part three about the trial part and try not to write a novel?
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