I finally have completed my first bout of jury duty (this after getting out of it on my past 3 summons in the past year or two). It feels as if the elements of our justice system that we flaunt as the most noble (innocent until proven guilty!) are completely subsumed by
psychological catches.
On Tuesday of last week, I was selected to the jury during the process of
Voir Dire. The defendant was a black male. The first question that the Defense asked was "When you walked into this court room and saw the defendant, did you think he was guilty of something?". This question was posed to the panel selected to go through the
Voir Dire process. Every single person responded no.
Flash forward to Thursday. Evidence is done being entered. Arguments are wrapped up. The five other jurors and myself head into our designated room. The bullish military guy gets elected to the foreman duties. We decide to take an initial tally and military guy firmly states that he was pretty sure from the start that the defendant was guilty. A complete 360 on his answer when posed in
Voir Dire. I am the only one in the room to immediately voice a Not Guilty. For the next hour and a half, I am the only one on that side of the debate that ensues. After the hour and a half, quiet guy (and with me in the room how does this fall to anyone else?) says that he had a few problems with the evidence and was also on the Not Guilty side of things (in the first round of voting he had abstained from any indications, as immediate demands for my reasoning were made).
So now going back to the case.
The charge: Reckless Driving. By definition, Reckless Driving is Driving with willful or wanton disregard for people or property. An addendum indicates that speed may be considered reckless, but this is a non-binding condition.
The situation: On a weekday morning, two years ago, the defendant is riding to work on his motorcycle, a sports bike of some make or other. Along the way, he speeds (which is not one of the charges against him), and passes cars on both the left and right. Another motorcycle is riding with him. They go into a turn and see a car braking in front of them. They both hit the brakes. The bikes wobble a bit, and the defendant regains control and comes out of the curve. The other bike does not. The defendant continues on. A light is up ahead. He turns left at the light (this is the road that his place of employment is located).
The Witnesses for the prosecution:
#1 A man that was also on his commute on that morning. He was behind the riders at the 705 off ramp (turning on to 509). He saw the riders
communicating with each other. He was one car behind the pair. The light turned green and they accelerated off. He estimates their speed at 70mph+ (as he's behind another vehicle, I assume that he's making this estimate from a stop or low speed, as his reaction to the light would be dependent on the vehicle in front of him). He loses sight of them. As he approaches the curve, he sees a cloud of dirt. Putting two and two together he thinks that at least one of the motorcycles has left the roadway. As he pulls even with the scene of the crash, his suspicions are confirmed. Vehicles appear to be on the scene of the crash. He sees the other motorcycle in the left turn lane at the
intersection and pulls up behind. He sees the rider look in his mirrors, apparently seeing the cloud of dust at the turn. He takes down the license plate number and turns on to the road as well (his work is also there, and he intends to follow the bike to see what might be up here?). He sees the bike passing cars using the left turn lane and loses sight of the bike again. He pulls into his work parking lot, turns around, and heads back to the scene. The bit about using the left turn lane to pass strikes me as the only bit that I might agree would meet the definition of Reckless Driving. But I assume that there will be more on that later. Some kind of
corroborating testimony as to this action. This never comes.
#2 A woman driving through the curve. She sees both bikes coming up from behind her in the right lane. She says that they are going "maybe 100mph". She knows the
defendant slightly through work but didn't recognize him in his riding gear. Her thought as they pass her is "how stupid" (and this phrase is reused later by old lady on the jury. Repeatedly.) She sees the car further ahead on the road. The car brakes way early for the upcoming light (her
interpretation is that the braking is intended to slow down enough to coast through the light without having to stop). The motorcycles brake. She sees them wobble a bit. The defendant regains control and continues. She sees the other bike lose control completely and go off the road. The prosecution in the course of
interviewing the witness asks if she thought the riders were driving in a manner that was dangerous. She says. No. The prosecution asks this question three times. Rephrasing it slightly each time. And her answer stays the same. This is frustrating to the prosecution. (and completely ignored later by the rest of the jury).
#3 A detective from the Tacoma Police Department. He was driving to work that morning. He saw emergency vehicles on the side of 509 and pulled up to help secure the scene. At some point (within a half hour of the detective getting there) a truck pulls up with the
defendant in the passenger seat. The detective says that they ask about helping with the bike. The detective sees the
defendant's motorcycle gear in the back of the truck and thinks that this might be the other rider that he's heard reference to. No information is gleaned from the prosecution or defense about any other questions that might have been asked by the driver of the truck or the defendant (this comes up later as Old Lady continues to partially defend her Guilty verdict by saying "if he was a decent person he wouldn't have asked about the bike first". Of course, this seems like a false assumption to me, as I can not possibly imagine a
conversation initiated at an accident scene that begins something like "hey is that a (possibly) damaged motorcycle over there? Mind if I throw it in the back of my truck?"). The detective asks some questions and ascertains that the defendant was the other rider (the defendant is cooperative in the questioning). They bring him in to question him about the accident (he is not under arrest). He complies answers the questions and is free to go. They call him back in a few weeks later to ask some more questions. Again he answers them and is free to go. No charges are filed at either time. In fact, we as the jury never find out when or who filed the charges. The
defendant,
during questioning, said that he had been speeding at about 70mph. Which is in line with the testimony of the first witness. He also indicates that he was coming back to the scene to help the other rider. But out of sync with the second. The detective does provide some background on Reckless Driving as a charge, namely by stating that often the choice to add reckless driving is based on conditions and
circumstances.
And on that witness the prosecution rests. Did I mention that no officer actually saw any of the behavior described? No firm indication of actual speed is present?
The defense calls one witness.
#1 (and only) a woman who is completely forgettable. Her only testimony is that she works with the defendant as a commercial driver and attests to his safe driving. She was in a truck turning right from the street that the defendant was turning left onto after the accident. She waved at him and he
acknowledged her.
The defense rests.
So a few
observational things. The prosecution is inept. He gets his ass handed to him
procedurally and doesn't get what he wants out of his witnesses. He submits pieces of evidence that have little bearing on what the defendant is charged with. You'll note that leaving the scene of an accident, speeding, or causing the accident aren't brought up. The prosecution tries to imply the cause of the accident is the
defendant at some points, but nothing indicates this. He also uses a nice bit of retarded statistics to try and say the speeds traveled at are dangerous - the statistic as stated - "Two bikes go into the turn, one comes out. Would a reasonable person engage in an activity that has a fifty percent chance of resulting in an accident?". I choke back a chortle when he makes this statement. The only strong point of the prosecution is his opening statement and closing argument. The defense is the opposite. Her opening statement and closing argument are pretty humdrum, but she's quick to object, and has the judge sustain her objections
consistently (is there such a thing as a legal batting average using objections sustained/overruled?). The prosecution objects at points but the judge rules against him most of the time (he's definitely batting under .100).
We have no exact number on the speed that the bikes were traveling. 70mph is admitted to, but if we are to believe the second witness for the prosecution, they hit the turn at 100mph (which I am extremely skeptical of - the defense shreds her ability to estimate speeds through a series of questions, and her assertion that she doesn't feel that the riders are driving unsafely would seem to be
contraindicated if they actually are riding at 100mph).
The prosecution is definitely guilty of hyperbole (at least on some scale). The following statement tainted day one of jury discussion, and are
contradicted in part by the detective's questioning of the
defendant in the two separate interviews:
"weaving in and out of traffic at excessive speeds"
The detective made mock ups of the
intersections and intervening stretches. His
investigation in conjunction with the defendants statements indicate that the defendant passed two cars. There were a total of four lane changes. Jury
deliberation and the starting point of Old Lady's argument was the weaving in and out of traffic at excessive speeds. Given that the accounts seemed to indicate a total of three or four cars on the road in a one mile stretch (and one of those cars was behind the defendant and wouldn't play into the passing at all) it's hard to make the leap the prosecution wanted. But that wasn't too large a hurdle for 4 out of 6 jurors. I'd be hard pressed to call 3 or 4 cars "light traffic".
Conditions on the day in question were dry and sunny.
The cloud of dust apparently (if we're to believe all testimony) hung in the air for a significant amount of time. It had to go up initially when the accident occurred, and remained in the air as witness #1 approached the turn. From the turn to the light is 3/4 mile (
ish).
The total distance from when witness #1 turned onto 509 to the turn is 3.8 miles. The witness got to the light at Taylor Way and was directly behind the defendant. Which would indicate that either the witness was also driving "about 100 mph", or the rider wasn't going as fast as Witness #2 thought.
So that's where we started. Plenty of things for me to doubt. Apparently not much for everybody else. We were in
deliberations for two days, separated by the three day fourth of July weekend. Come Monday, I was tired from a long weekend of ultimate. I entered the room with the other five. Quiet guy spoke up, saying that he had thought about things over the weekend and had changed his mind. He had plenty of friends that rode bikes and rode them exactly as the defendant seemed to ride his (speed!
wheee!), but that's why he wouldn't ride a bike himself. Because he would also be tempted to engage in that kind of behavior. His choice to not ride because he thought he'd engage in such behaviors was what made him think of the behaviors as reckless. So now its my job to try and convince five people that he's not guilty. And I'm tired.
Brain dead from a weekend packed with stimuli.
The jury of his peers is me. It is an elderly woman (late 50s?). It is the Quiet Guy (late 30s? Early 40s?). Military guy (late 40s easily). Quiet Girl (she speaks probably a total of 20 words over the two days. She is in her early 20s) And Indian guy (also late 30s, early 40s).
Indian guy and Military guy admit early on that they started at guilty and didn't get convinced otherwise based on the cross examination of the
prosecution's witnesses. The military guy constantly comes back to the definition of the crime and substitutes the name of a law he broke (but isn't charge with) in the statement "He willfully...." as in "He willfully sped". My argument is not that he didn't commit the ancillary crimes (which again he is not charged with), but that committing those crimes does not necessarily imply a disregard for the safety of persons or property. Otherwise cops would hand out Reckless Driving tickets like it was
nobody's business with the speeding tickets that they do give.
Old lady declares her view that driving of today's youth in general is reckless. That speed is enough. She goes so far as to say the defendant is not a decent human being because he didn't turn around immediately and go back to the scene of the accident (turn around at the light, as opposed to getting to work, finding a ride back, etc...)
Quiet girl just declares guilty every time the question is asked.
Quiet guy sits on the speeding and passing as well.
No one doubts the memories of the witnesses (2 years between the day in question and the trial). No one budges. I've drank 3 cups of coffee. I've run out of things to say. We sit in silence for stretches. I cede on one point. The passing in the turn lane. The defense never contested this point. Never tried to make explicit an underlying reason for this portion of the ride. I earlier defended this bit by asking two questions
1) Are there any
circumstances in which you would use the turn lane to pass (wife in labor? etc...)? The other jurors answered yes to this.
2) Would knowledge of the accident (and a
corresponding distress related to getting help) be an explanation for this? The other jurors refused to accept this.
In the end I gained no ground, and agreed that at least the last bit of the ride could be construed as reckless. Because the defense never tried to defend this portion, never tried to establish a motive, it was left as something that you could either make assumptions about or not.
The process left me feeling sick in general. I felt that there were holes in what the prosecution presented. There were
vagaries. And despite the piss poor job he did, the city got the verdict in their favor.
"Innocent Until Proven Guilty" seems like a wonderful idea, but its practical application seemed to leave much to be desired. At least half the jurors seemed to start from guilty and wanted the defense to back them up from guilty towards innocence. I would postulate that there is a
psychological basis for this. When involved in a criminal case where a figure with vested authority (in this case, the city - this was municipal court) presents charges against an individual, there seems to be a stronger impetus for the herd instinct of starting from the point of view of the authority figure. In retrospect it makes the defense's opening statement and closing argument more
understandable. I had been
underwhelmed with both during the course of the trial. They seemed to be mostly
admonishments that the burden of proof was on the state and the assertion of innocence until proven guilty. These things needed to be rehashed because in reality we often do put the burden of proof on the defense, regardless of the
instructions. And I think that the
admonishments fell on deaf ears in this case.
So, with no help and what at times appeared to be an
un-hearing wall of stupid, I buckled on the one point and went against what I felt should have been the correct decision. I regret that to a degree. Should I have sat there for days refusing to budge? Would a hung jury and a retrial give the defendant a better mix of his peers to determine his fate? How much would my personal life have been impacted by doing so? And my work life? Would the other jurors eventually have said uncle and ruled Not Guilty to appease me and get back to their jobs? Is it better to have one person vote Guilty with
reservations then to have 5 people vote Not Guilty while only doing so to get back to their lives? These are the questions that will plague me.
Or how about the perceptions of the defendant by the other jurors? Would they have been as quick to jump to guilty if it was a middle aged white guy? A young woman? A car (instead of a motorcycle)?
Gah. What ifs will ruin me.
This is the stuff that will make me expatriate. But where to...
