Online since June 1997!

Mr. Hayden Goes to Jury Duty

28-Apr-04 -- A lot of people were curious what happened on the case I was a juror on.  You know I TRIED to get dismissed from being on the jury, as lawyers have usually had automatic exemptions and still do in many jurisdictions.  Even though I'm not currently practicing law, I am working in a law firm and have a law degree, but that does not matter anymore.  There is no automatic exemption in NY state based on occupation as the entire juror system has been revised under the leadership of the highest Judge in New York, Judith Kaye.  I believe there has been a lot of streamlining as what took me five days, usually took two weeks in the past.  Of course, I couldn't help but remember the joke that I've heard that ANY jury I'd be on would be "hung," but I answered all the questions honestly and just wanted to get it over with.

At first I had to report to the court where most civil cases are heard in Kings County, but then they realized there was a deficit of jurors for the criminal court.  So after going through the metal detectors again and again, I was guided to the criminal court and became a juror at my first voir dire (the jury selection process).  They had warned us at the outset that it was VERY RARE for anyone to be dismissed from serving on a jury altogether as even if we were not picked for the first trial, we would be subject to scrutiny to numerous voir dires. 

A strange coincidence is that the name of the presiding judge is EXACTLY the same as the name of one of my online friends who I finally met for the first time one of the evenings during the pendency of the trial.  I had been chatting with him for MANY months prior to meeting but our first meeting happened to coincide with the trial, which is bizarre.

There were many details to the case, but it was basically for attempted murder and gun possession, even though no firearm was ever found.  Both the defendant and the victim were Spanish-speaking, but the jurors and I all agreed later (and two of them were fluent in Spanish) that the defendant was lying about how much English he knew.  Indeed, when the defendant dared to take the stand (something rare in criminal cases as defendants have no obligation to testify or even present a case), he even started to answer the prosecutor's questions without need of translation!  Indeed, not only did he understand English well, but he also denied that one of the 911 calls was made by him.  Contradicting himself, he even testified that he made a 911 call, but that it was "short" and the operator didn't understand him, so he hung up.  Of course all 911 calls are recorded and the person who made the call in accented but clear English even said that he was the one doing construction (building shelves) at the exact location of the shooting.  He also testified that no one else was doing construction at that location.  He also admitted he knew the victim, that the victim threatened his life, had a dispute with some of his friends, and that they had a "physical fight".  I don't think someone who knows VERY little English would have said "physical" fight on a 911 call, but he stressed that.  The defendant was wearing the same color shirt/tank top as the gunman, etc.  He changed his stories many times so the defense made a mistake in allowing him to testify.  There was no reasonable explanation as to how this other man could have been shot.  As I told my fellow jurors apropos to the gun possession, he didn't THROW the bullets into the victim, who suffered four bullet wounds, which may have been from as many as 2-4 bullets.

The victim was very handsome (in a woofy way) but he was no nice guy.  Over 15 years ago he had had a robbery and drug dealing charge and was currently serving a sentence for a recent robbery, for which he has five more months.

Egregiously the defendant, who had never before been in trouble with the law, had tried to give the victim, who was in another jail cell in the court building the day of the voir dire, a piece of paper instructing him to call a number to get $10,000 not to testify.  There were plenty of other witnesses who could corroborate the victim's story, even though the victim was shot in the back initially, but then turned around and claims the gunman was the defendant.  It seems this victim was a bully and probably did threaten the defendant, but had moved on, put back his headphones and was going to work when he was shot down the street by the defendant, after having "won" the fist-fight.  Using the gun to shoot a man in the back under these circumstances, we felt, was seriously bad judgment.

So besides, being a little pissed at the waste of taxpayer money in using expensive translators throughout the trial who weren't even all that accurate and good which I could tell knowing Spanish moderately, it was also upsetting to be called to the stand for such an open and shut case.  The process was interesting nonetheless.  It is a bit troubling to know that my name was read into the record in front of the victim as a sworn juror, but I guess that's why there are twelve of us (with two alternates) as it would be mayhem to have us ALL killed out of revenge! 

Besides our disappointment in the very likeliness of this defendant's guilt, we all decided to be very thorough and to make sure we could sleep at night knowing we put this man away.  Accordingly, above and beyond our instructions to review the charges, we went through every possible charge before deciding on the most severe that the assistant district attorney sought.  We did not give our verdict until all of our questions were satisfied, which included looking through all of the exhibits and listening to all of the 911 tapes again. 

During the deliberation I disclosed to my fellow jurors that I had a JD, but did not imply that I knew more about the case than any of them.  I think most of them were somewhat relieved that I could answer some of their questions about the process, although we could not speculate on the sentencing and appeals processes.  It was also helpful to have someone who was a peace officer and knew about ballistics to help us ascertain some information about the gun that must have been used.  We had been told that we would not be sequestered, but we also knew that we had to deliberate until we all were satisfied with the result.  Still, we were all relieved when we were able to end the deliberation after only a few hours, during which time the state had paid for us to have lunch brought in.

I feel like I've done my civil duty and I think my fellow jurors and I are proud of the work we did.

This page was last updated 28-Dec-2007.