Reporter's Notebook: As a juror in a criminal trial, I had to see the world differently

There are criminal trials unfolding all the time here in the North Country. Many of them have juries, a group of 12 local residents hearing the...

There are criminal trials unfolding all the time here in the North Country. Many of them have juries, a group of 12 local residents hearing the case and deciding whether or not the defendant is guilty.

We rarely hear from those jurors. They’re not allowed to discuss the case while it’s unfolding, but jurors are allowed to talk after a verdict has been reached. I recently served on a jury and experienced something that will stay with me for a long time.

Emily RussellReporter's Notebook: As a juror in a criminal trial, I had to see the world differently

Essex County Courthouse Complex<br \/>Elizabethtown, New York. Photo Jimmy Emerson, DVM via flickr
Essex County Courthouse Complex
Elizabethtown, New York. Photo Jimmy Emerson, DVM via flickr

It started with a card in the mail summoning me for jury duty. A lot of people showed up for service on that first day. We were all interviewed, and I ended up being one of the 12 people chosen to serve on the jury, along with two additional alternate jurors.

As a journalist, I do my best to keep my opinions out of my work. But for the next four days my opinion, based on the evidence, was really the only job I had.

Immersed in the case

I’m not going to go into the specifics of the case, just to say that it was a dark one. The alleged crime took place in a world of struggle, pain, neglect, and abuse.

For those next four days, everyone in the courtroom was immersed in that world. The attorneys and people who testified painted this vivid picture. And as a juror, I felt like we were right there with them, in some of the darkest moments of these people’s lives.

I was wrecked after the first day.  We weren’t allowed to talk about the case with anyone outside the courthouse - that’s normal for a jury trial, but that left me with thoughts of the case flooding my mind at the end of each day. One juror told me she was having a hard time sleeping.

That was about as much as we were allowed to say, even to each other. We weren’t allowed to talk about the case to other jurors until deliberation, until the judge gave us permission.

So we’d be dismissed for lunch or for a 15-minute break and couldn’t say anything about what we had just heard. We’d mostly sit around in a heavy silence. 

Deliberating the case

That silence ceased on the final day of the trial. We heard closing arguments in the morning and then around noon the rest was up to us. What unfolded in the next few hours was intense. 

Here we all were, from all around the county, from really different backgrounds and life experiences. We shared our thoughts, our gut feelings, our own interpretation of the evidence. 

In the beginning of the trial, they tell you not to expect what you see on TV. There wasn’t DNA evidence, the alleged crime wasn’t caught on camera, it wasn’t recorded in a way. So what we had was mostly just testimonies, what people remembered had happened years ago.

We went back and forth over those testimonies. We reviewed the evidence we did have, and after hours of deliberating, we had a consensus. All twelve jurors found the defendant guilty.

We walked back into the courtroom with our verdict. The defendant was there, the families involved in the case were there. For me, that was the hardest moment of all, one I’ll never forget. I felt confident in our guilty verdict, but I knew, in part because of my opinion, people's lives were about to change forever. 

The judge accepted our verdict and just like that, it was over. We were dismissed and walked out of the courthouse. We’re all now allowed to talk about what happened that week with our families, with the media, with anyone. I’ve done a lot of that lately, processing what we heard, what we saw, what we ultimately decided and I’ll likely keep processing in the weeks and months to come.

Not all cases cause stress or trauma

The type of case I heard was not among the most commonly heard by juries. According to Valerie Hans, who teaches at Cornell Law School and studies the jury system, far more common are civil and nonviolent criminal cases.

“The good news is that in the vast majority of cases where juries serve, they come to the court, they listen to the testimony, they deliberate with other jurors and feel good about their experience at the end of the day," says Hans.

"There are specific kinds of cases that can engender stress in jurors," Hans adds. "The most common are death penalty cases, cases of sexual assault, and in particular child sexual assault and sexual abuse.”

In those kinds of cases, jurors may be shown gruesome evidence or hear difficult, graphic testimonies. The death penalty is illegal in New York, but in the 27 states where it's legal, those jurors have an incredible weight and responsibility to bear.

Support systems for jurors

For jurors that serve on more traumatic cases, there’s not a standard system in place across the US to provide counseling or other types of support to jurors. Gregory Mize, a retired judge who now works with the National Center for State Courts, says certain jurisdictions are now establishing support systems for jurors.

State courts in Texas, North Carolina, Minnesota are developing counseling programs for jurors and Massachusetts now provides counselors to jurors. In Canada, Mize says the Canadian Juries Commission is working to provide mental health support for jurors.

"They’ve created a commission that’s devoted to helping Canadian jurors with PTSD," says Mize. "So there’s an example of a central effort and that was instituted within the last 12 to 18 months."

Ultimately, Mize says, the US doesn't have a public, universal healthcare system that could provide universal mental health support to jurors. Until then, many jurors are left to deal with their stress or trauma on their own.

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