Judge, Jury, and Elecutioner

First of all, I found this little quizzie thing at Nina’s place. Which Marvel superhero are you?

Met Nina on the radio shows over the last week. If there’s any good to come of all the drama this past week, it’s that I met some cool people. Anyway, here’s the quiz and my results:

Find out Which Marvel Superhero Are You at LiquidGeneration.com!

Yeah, buddy! Spiderman!

Right, on to the jury duty story. FINALLY.

So last month, as you probably know, while I was in Dallas on vacation I received a jury summons for the Federal District Court here in Florida. The district happens to have five counties under its jurisdiction, and Highlands County (where I live) is by far the farthest county from the courthouse itself. But as I found out, it IS in the district.

I’ve had one jury summons before this. It was when I lived in Dallas and I went in for a day but never got picked for the jury. This time was different. First, it was in a FEDERAL court, not a county court. Secondly, I DID get picked to be on a jury during a trial.

The summons included information, saying that we couldn’t bring ANY electronic devices into the courthouse with us. No laptops, no PDAs, no cell phones, no Gameboys or iPods…nothing. Understandable. They don’t want you (1) communicating with the outside world during a trial, or (2) researching stuff on the Internet about the case, or (3) being distracted with your Nintendo DS when you’re supposed to be paying attention to the case.

Also, jurors get paid $40 per day of service AND they get 49 cents per mile to help pay for gasoline. They calculate the distance between the courthouse and your home post office and THAT’S the mileage they use.

I was required to be “on call” for jury duty starting last Monday, the 9th. That meant calling into the jury hotline every night after 5:30pm to see if my presence was required the next morning. On Monday, I wasn’t needed. I kind of hoped it would stay that way, but Monday night when I called, they told me to show up the next morning. So I quickly threw a bunch of stuff into a suitcase and left for my sister’s house in Boca Raton. That’s still 90 minutes from the courthouse in Fort Pierce, but it’s a lot closer than MY house.

Here now are some notes I took my first day in the courthouse:

So even though the hotline said we COULD bring cell phones into the court, this guy opened up the front door and said, “If you have a phone, put it back in your car.” DAMMIT! I’m having to rely on antiquated pen and paper. Oh well.

Right now I’m in the Jury Assembly Room. After going through the metal detector thingie to make sure I’m not packing heat or anything as dangerous as nail clippers, we’re all waiting here in the assembly room. There’s around 25-30 people from all over a five-county area, each waiting to contribute to the American Justice System.

My bro-in-law, Rob, is a deputy in Palm Beach so I don’t know if that’ll have any bearing in my serving on a jury.

Right, now they’re checking us in by scanning the barcode on our summons. And now we’re going to watch a movie. Movie is incredibly cheesy, but it talks all about the jury process. I’m in trouble. Movie says that all I’m required to bring into the court room is my common sense. Uh oh. Is my common sense worth $40/day and 49 cents/mile? Hmm.

They gave us Juror badges to wear and the clerk filled us in on the details of our service. No talking to ANYONE about the case while the case is underway. Not the judge, not the lawyers, not the plaintiff or defendant, not EACH OTHER. Period.

Clerk called 50 people to serve today and only 35 showed. Those people have balls, not showing up. We’re talking Federal court here. That’s probably a Federal offense, ignoring a summons.

I’m on the first jury panel of 20 people. They start with a panel of 20 people and whittle it down to the jury they need for the case. I think I’m officially “Juror #2.” We’ll see what happens once we go to the court room.

I was thinking they’d provide us lunch, but no. We get an hour (at least) to go off and eat across the street. Or wherever.

I’m wearing a t-shirt I got from Think Geek, which says: “You read my t-shirt. That’s enough social interaction for one day.” Oops, I didn’t read the small print on my summons which says that you should wear “business casual” clothing. No jeans or t-shirts. I showed up in both. Oh well.

1:45pm – So yeah, I’m on a jury. It’s a civil case and I’m hoping it’s done today. It involves – well, can’t really say yet. By FEDERAL LAW. (Ed. Note: Now I can say that it involved a prison inmate who was suing two correctional officers for excessive use of force.)

There are nine jurors. First they took the 20 of us into the courtroom and went about selecting the jury. We each stood up in turn, announced our name, what we did for a living, and whether we had any relatives in law enforcement. That didn’t seem to have any bearing, though. Yeah, the plaintiff and defense lawyers each picked three jurors to excuse, but I’m not sure what the rhyme or reason was for dismissing those people.

The judge asked us other questions like whether we’d ever been involved in a lawsuit, whether or not we’d be impartial in regards to both sides of the case, etc. One woman had to be excused because her husband had to start dialysis.

Other than that, no major drama involved. It IS an interesting case and I wish I knew how the other jurors are leaning but again, we can’t talk about it until the evidence is all presented and we’re sent to the Jury Deliberation Room.

I also discovered that they would have put me up in a hotel because I live outside a 50-mile radius of the courthouse. Thanks for telling me that…now.

Went to a cafe for lunch, had a chicken salad sandwich and fries. No drinks allowed in the courtroom, by the way, dammit. Coffee would be nice because the pacing is rather slow in court.

OK, so that’s all I wrote in my little notebook. Wasn’t allowed to bring THAT in the courtroom, either.

So the basics of the case. Again, a prison inmate was bringing a lawsuit (civilly) against two correctional officers for excessive use of force. Because it was a CIVIL lawsuit and not a CRIMINAL trial, the inmate didn’t have a lawyer. He was representing himself because he just couldn’t afford an attorney. In a criminal case, he would have been provided an attorney.

The two defendants had two lawyers, of course. And four witnesses, including the two correctional officers. The plaintiff had nothing. Aside from his OWN testimony, so yeah, the odds were stacked against him from the start. Unlike a criminal case, in a civil case, the burden of proof rests with the plaintiff. In other words, he had to prove to the jury that excessive force had been used against him. And that proved to be impossible.

To make a long story a teeny bit shorter, here’s what the inmate claimed. He had gotten to that prison five days before “the incident.” He was written up (in what is called a Disciplinary Report, or “D.R.”) for walking outside of the yellow lines on the way out of chow. Yeah, they’re required to walk between two yellow lines in certain places in the prison compound. I guess it’s to keep things orderly.

He claimed that the officer who told him to get inside the lines was harassing him. The officer said, “You want harassment? I’m writing you up.” Then, because the inmate now had a D.R. pending review, he was supposed to be taken to “disciplinary confinement,” which is a separate “dorm area” than general population.

He was escorted by the officer to the “C Dorm,” where confinement takes place. It’s NOT solitary, it’s just separate from general population. As he entered the C Dorm, he claims that the housing supervisor, a correctional sergeant in charge of the C Dorm, then jacked him up against a chain link fence and grabbed him around his throat. He was told that he was going to have a cell-mate, and the inmate complained about it. He said that he didn’t WANT a cellmate that he didn’t know because he was afraid for his life.

Keep in mind that this guy has been in prison since 1992 in various institutions around Florida. AND that he’d only gotten to THIS prison five days prior, so he really didn’t KNOW anyone, really. The only time that the prison officials put you in your OWN cell without a cellmate is if you’re either in protective custody OR you’re handicapped.

So the sergeant supposedly roughed the inmate up. Then they escorted the inmate up the stairs to his new cell. There were four officers up there, along with the inmate and ANOTHER inmate, who was supposed to be bunking with him. So Smith (yeah, that’s the inmate’s last name) is told to get in the cell. He refuses several times, standing directly in the cell doorway so that nobody else could enter the cell. Again, he’s saying he doesn’t WANT a cellmate. He CLAIMS that he requested “protective management” (custody).

The sergeant then calls the Officer-in-Charge (OIC), who is a Captain in charge of the entire prison during the night shift. The Captain shows up a few minutes later, tells the inmate to get in the fucking cell, and Smith refuses yet again. So the Captain SHOVES Smith into the cell, then pushes him up (hard) against the wall and says, “I don’t CARE what you fucking want. You will obey me when I give you an order, motherfucker.”

Mind you, during all of this, Smith is handcuffed behind his back.

They secure the cell door, and DON’T give him a cellmate that night. Smith gets in touch with the nurse who wanders through the dorm, making rounds, and asking if anyone has any medical issues. He says he wants to go to medical for a “post-use-of-force” exam, and he is escorted to medical.

He tells the nurse all of the things that have happened. She makes note of it all on the report. He claims that he has bruises and cuts on his arms and neck. Well, there are red marks on his neck, but no actual bruises. And he claims that it hurts to swallow.

THAT is the incident in a nutshell. As far as Smith is concerned.

The OFFICERS all claim that while some of Smith’s testimony is accurate, they differ wildly. They say that – aside from placing their hands on Smith’s arms while escorting him up the stairs to his cell – they never TOUCHED Smith. They say Smith incessantly resisted the process all the way from the chow line to his cell. And that’s THEIR story in a nutshell.

Here are more ways in which Smith had shit stacked against his favor. It was made clear (through the defense lawyer’s cross examination of Smith after his testimony) that he is a terminal griever. In other words, he has filed grievances over 200 times since his incarceration. Two HUNDRED times. Yeah, that doesn’t look good. He has filed grievances after all THIRTY of the D.R.s he has received, claiming that every single one of the disciplinary reports was fabricated. And he has filed well over 80 lawsuits against the Florida Department of Corrections. Again, not looking good.

However, I will say that I found Smith a lot more credible than the officers. He was quite soft-spoken, far more intelligent than all of the correctional officers, and I found him to be very forthcoming about not only all of the grievances and lawsuits he’s filed over the years, but about his own resistance toward following *some* rules.

It was almost painful to watch him represent himself in court. You’d think after all the experience he’s had in court with these lawsuits he’s filed that he would be much better prepared and know how the fuck the system works. He was constantly being “objected” to by the defense and most of the time those objections were sustained by the judge.

I think I could just about be a lawyer after those two days in court. All you have to do is occasionally speak into the microophone and say things like: “Objection: hearsay” or “Objection: relevance” or “Objection: the plaintiff is a big fat liar.”

There were numerous inconsistencies in the defense witnesses’ testimonies. I caught them all and it was very clear to me from nearly the beginning that there was a massive cover-up going on by the officers. I have NO doubt that there WAS force used against Smith. I know that correctional officers (and it doesn’t take much to become one, by the way) KNOW how to use force against people and not leave a mark.

And there’s the “brown wall of silence.” The Florida Department of Corrections officers wear brown uniforms. So much like there is in the military or in police departments all over the place, officers stick together and back each other up all the way. No ratting each other out.

Smith asked the first officer directly if he’d heard of “The Brown Wall of Silence” and the officer claimed ignorance. BULLSHIT. Total fucking lie.

Now, this event happened THREE years ago. Each of these officers clearly prepped for the trial, understandable, by reading the old reports and getting familiar with everything again. I’m sure they face incidents every day, so again, there’s no way they could remember all the details WITHOUT reviewing all the documentation.

But every officer made it very clear that they remembered all the details very well. So when the housing sergeant claimed he didn’t recall Smith ever leaving his cell after the incident to go to medical, I again called BULLSHIT. The housing officer knows ALL the comings and goings of the inmates into his dorm during his shift.

And Smith provided the medical report, which PROVED he was in medical after the incident. It was time-stamped and everything.

The problem was with the defense’s last witness: the nurse who examined Smith after the supposed use of force. She wrote down all of Smith’s details, what he claimed happened, yes, but she ALSO wrote that she couldn’t find a single thing wrong with him. EXCEPT for one small half-centimeter abrasion on his elbow.

I could name a hundred different inconsistencies, but suffice it to say that *I* felt the officers were guilty. In the deliberation room, I was the ONLY one who felt that way out of 9 total jurors. I voiced my rationale, that I KNEW there was a cover-up going on, and WHY I knew there was a cover-up. Other jurors agreed with me that SOMEthing had happened.

BUT. We were there to decide on this case, and in doing so, we had to be able to say there was PROOF of excessive use of force. Not just that there was FORCE being used – which is entirely justified many times in prison – but EXCESSIVE use of force.

I had to agree that there was no such evidence. The nurse was the most credible of ALL the witnesses, and she really put the nail in the coffin. Plus, she was the only person that didn’t (as the defense attorney said) “have a dog in the fight,” since she was no longer employed by the prison and had nothing to gain by lying about anything.

So we took barely an hour to deliberate. Most of the jurors felt that Smith was a paranoid lying sack of shit who was just looking to get out of prison for a couple of days. I disagreed (and still do). “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that people AREN’T out to get you,” I said. And I could see no gain for Smith to lie. He wasn’t going to get out of prison – we were told during the trial that he had no release date, though we were NOT told why he was in prison in the first place. Even if he WON and got monetary damages, how the hell was he going to ENJOY the money in prison?

Regardless, we found for the defendants. I feel justice was served because we ruled the way we ruled because that’s the way the law works. Even though I believe he was telling the truth, Smith had no evidence other than his testimony.

I WISH that after the verdict was read in the courtroom that I could have stood up and said, “OK, just because we found for the defendants, that doesn’t mean you pulled the fucking wool over our eyes. We KNOW shit went down. It just can’t be proved.” But there are no qualifying statements allowed in the verdict. It’s yay or nay. Period.

The other point I raised in the deliberation room was that, while it looked bad that Smith had filed over 200 grievances, that doesn’t mean that SOME of his grievances and complaints weren’t TRUE. Or that this particular lawsuit and his allegations weren’t TRUE.

I think he told the truth. I think the officers lied. And I also think that if Smith didn’t request protective custody ON THE WAY BACK TO PRISON he’s a fucking moron, because that guy has to go BACK to prison with those officers. And you know he’s going to get some serious shit for all this.

I found it a very interesting experience, jury duty. I’m glad I was able to serve and I learned a lot. I also found it frustrating that things are so black-and-white in the law, and that there was no way to punish the officers for their bullshit. I do NOT believe that prisoners should have a freaking country club experience in prison. Not at all. But I DO believe that they still have rights afforded to them by the Constitution, among those is the right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment.

Anyway, I’m glad that we weren’t told what Smith was in prison for. Not that it would have changed my mind, but when I got home I googled the guy. Amongst the many, MANY lawsuits I saw on the results page, I went to the Florida Department of Corrections site and searched for his name. His picture came up and so did the charges that brought him to prison.

He is a convicted child molester. Several cases of molesting a child under 12 years of age, and one case of abusing someone under the age of 16. Ugh.

I’m glad he’s not getting out of prison. He’s 58 years old and I hope he stays there for good.

But again, that wouldn’t have changed my mind about the case. It certainly has bearing, however, on how fucking scared Smith must be in prison because child molesters are NOT treated well by inmates. Ever.

There, that’s the story. Finally.

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