Trying to Judge the Jury Can Be a Risky Proposition : King trial: Courtroom veterans agree that trying to interpret gestures can mean everything--or nothing.

The movement by Juror 6 came just as prosecutor Steven D. Clymer reached a peak moment in his closing argument. As Clymer lambasted the defendants for beating “a helpless man,” Rodney G. King, the juror leaned back in his chair and rigidly folded his arms.

Most all the eyes in the courtroom were riveted on Clymer, a dynamic young prosecutor giving a virtuoso performance. But Juror 6 drew the interested gaze of others, including a woman seated quietly at the defense table for the last six weeks, a consultant who specializes in helping lawyers pick jurors--and monitors their reactions during the trial.

Criminologist Jo-Ellan Dimitrius later resisted drawing firm conclusions from the gesture of Juror 6, a white man who appears to be in his 30s and is believed to work in the military. “He might’ve been cold,” Dimitrius said outside court. “It does get cold in there.”

But her own body language included a broad smile, perhaps because other professional jury analysts suggested a less tame interpretation of the folded arms--that the juror was not buying Clymer’s pitch for convictions of the four police officers accused of violating King’s civil rights.

Indeed, two hours later, Juror 6 was leaning forward on the edge of his chair as the first defense lawyer gave his closing statement, urging acquittals for Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and his three co-defendants, asserting that they were being used as “sacrificial lambs” by Los Angeles police brass embarrassed by the videotape of the King beating.

Courtroom veterans agree that it is risky to try to read the minds of jurors, to interpret small gestures as evidence of their leaning. “A dangerous pseudoscience,” one jury psychologist called it.

But it is also a game that most everyone plays, especially in a celebrated case where the earlier verdicts in Simi Valley were attributed in large part to the makeup of the jury.

So here in federal court in Los Angeles, more than a few glances have been directed at the eight men and four women--especially the two African-Americans--who hold the fate of the defendants, and perhaps a city, in their hands.

As the trial reached its climax, attorneys in the case, visiting lawyers and other spectators could be heard sharing whispered observations about the jurors, trying to decipher who might emerge as supporters of the prosecution or defense among the panelists known only by their numbers and now sequestered in secret deliberations.

A lawyer volunteered that Juror 3, one of the African-Americans, seemed to take more notes when the prosecutor spoke. An out-of-town journalist insisted that a woman on the panel, Juror 1, had nodded in approval with the defense.

As for Dimitrius, she said she feels she knows the jurors “intimately” because of 53-page questionnaires they filled out before jury selection, which have not been made public. But she complained that, in court, “it’s a pretty poker-faced group,” making it nearly impossible to measure reactions.

She ventured only one prediction. “Juror 8 will be forewoman,” she said, referring to a well-dressed white woman, probably in her 50s, who showed an assertive personality during jury selection, volunteering such details about her life as that she works for an insurance firm and is active in Toastmasters.

The diversity of the panel was evident in the contrast between the woman and the juror to her left, a bushy-bearded white man, probably in his 30s, who wore T-shirts to court and looked as if he would be at home atop a Harley-Davidson.

U.S. District Judge John G. Davies has suggested that the jurors may not have an easy time deciding the sensitive case.

“I foresee difficulties,” Davies commented outside the jury’s presence, although he later noted firmly that, “I haven’t any idea of what’s going to happen in this case. I don’t think any of us do.”

That is a qualifier court veterans invariably start with when discussing perceptions of the jury.

“I never try to read a juror. Never!” said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola University law professor and former federal prosecutor who has attended most of the trial.

“The only time I ever got a clear signal . . . was when I had a murder trial and the jury came back and this one man looked at me and went”--she gave a thumbs-up sign--”and even then I wasn’t absolutely sure what he meant.”

Despite her disclaimer, Levenson could not help but be intrigued in the King trial when a former colleague in the U.S. attorney’s office pointed out body language that, he said, seemed a good sign for the prosecution. When the defense use-of-force expert, Sgt. Charles L. Duke Jr., was on the stand, asserting that every blow rained on King was justified, an alternate juror sitting a few feet away--the only African-American among the three alternates--turned his back and refused to look at him.

Like others in her field, Ann Greeley, a psychologist with Forensic Technologies International, a Pennsylvania-based jury analysis firm, warns against reading much into juror behavior, even when one looks utterly bored or nods off. “It may be (they’re tired) because their kid’s home sick,” she said.

On occasion, though, “there are pretty clear signs,” Greeley added--including a juror “leaning back and crossing (his) arms. (That’s) a pretty good indication they’re . . . being resistant and distancing themselves from the message.”

Dimitrius, the consultant in the King case, sat next to Harland W. Braun, the attorney for Officer Theodore J. Briseno. Her firm, Litigation Sciences, advertises that it has “teams of social scientists (to) help trial lawyers understand the biases, prejudices and perceptions that people bring with them into the courtroom. This knowledge permits us to predict how people are likely to react to what a lawyer intends to do (in order to) recommend strategies and tactics which will be maximally persuasive.”

When Koon’s attorney, Ira Salzman, prepared his closing statement, he asked Dimitrius how jurors might react to a quote from Othello about the value of a man’s honor. She cautioned that some “might not understand it,” making them feel dumb--and turning them off. Salzman did not use the quote.

In giving such advice, “in a way I’m acting as a shadow juror,” Dimitrius said.

Firms such as Litigation Sciences sometimes use polls, focus groups or mock trials to determine how types of jurors will react to a set of facts or arguments. Will they be swayed by reminders of how police can be killed in the line of duty--or insulted by the emotional appeal?

Duke University psychology professor Neil Vidmar, who co-wrote “Judging the Jury,” said consultants help lawyers by doing such research and in evaluating potential jurors. But he is skeptical of efforts to make predictions based on courtroom behavior, or even what panel members are wearing.

“There are jury experts who say the color of your clothes predict . . . how you’ll go. (That) if you happen to be red, you’re pro-defendant,” he said. “The kind of stuff that’s sold to people, it’s ludicrous.”

Yet, as a matter of common sense, “I’m willing to accept that sometimes our body language does give us away,” Vidmar added. “We can see someone involuntarily shaking their head, ‘no, no, no no.’ ”

This trial provided few such clues from jurors. And because the panel has been sequestered and carefully guarded, outsiders do not see them interact during recesses or when they leave the courthouse for their hotel.

One interaction that did surface came when a juror sent Davies a note suggesting that lunch breaks might be shortened to speed up the trial. When the judge asked other jurors about it, assertive Juror 8 spoke up to say the note did not speak for everyone. The lunch hour was maintained.

Three weeks ago, another message from the jury prompted a flurry of speculation in court. The defense case was getting off to a slow start--with a procession of police witnesses--and Clymer complained during a break that “the jury is getting very bored . . . very rapidly.”

“I don’t know whether it’s boredom,” Davies responded, “. . . (But) I’m told the jurors are asking: ‘What about Easter?’ Can they make plans for the Easter holiday? Take it for what it’s worth.”

The scrutiny of jurors is so intense that two spectators began speculating whether the reference to Easter was significant. “I assume none of the jurors (is) Jewish because they didn’t ask about Passover,” said one, a lawyer.

Although everyone in the case knows what is at stake, the jurors have not seemed overwhelmed by the pressure. They dutifully laughed at Davies’ occasional jokes, such as when the judge cut off a line of questioning--although the defense had not protested it--then announced, “and I’m sustaining my own objection.”

The panelists also burst into loud laughter at the end of one day when they departed for the jury room. Those left behind in court were never let in on the joke.

Because of criticisms that the Simi Valley jury had no African-Americans, the two on this panel have been the most closely watched figures in the jury box. Unlike the black alternate, who turned his back on Duke, they have been among the most stoic members of the jury.

Juror 3 is a trim ex-Marine, probably in his 60s, with a close-cropped gray beard, who has lived in Watts for 25 years. Although he insisted he could be impartial, defense lawyers at the last moment tried to have him excused, only to be overruled by Davies when the prosecution argued that the challenge was racially motivated.

The juror usually sat back in his chair, tilting his head down to peer over his wire-rim glasses at the witnesses, hardly moving.

The other African-American is Juror 7, a reserved woman about 30. A single mother raising a 4-year-old son while working for the Postal Service, she said she was surprised by the Simi Valley outcome but believed jurors there “did the best of their abilities.” Another careful dresser--her hoop earrings Saturday matched her red lipstick--she generally gazed straight ahead during testimony, rather than stare at the witness to her left.

Juror 6, in contrast, was the most animated of the panel, sometimes carrying half a dozen notebooks and scribbling in them like an eager student. A balding man who sometimes wore suspenders, he was seated in the back row and usually was the first to stand to better see witnesses demonstrate baton techniques. He also liked to study the attorneys, sometimes watching their response to testimony, rather than the witness giving it.

One lawyer analyzing the case for television speculated last week that Juror 6 might be “campaigning” to become the foreman over Juror 8, perhaps hoping to write a book on the case, like the Simi Valley jury’s forewoman.

Not until Sunday was the mystery solved--it was neither.

With the jury in its second day of deliberations, Judge Davies revealed that the panel had selected Juror 5, a white man who appears to be in his 40s and is believed to work in the real estate industry.

Now a new game began--to guess the meaning of that vote, and of every question the jury would make to the judge to review evidence. Did it favor the prosecution or defense?

While the game is sure to continue until verdicts are reached, the last day of trial arguments Saturday provided ample reminders of the limits of such speculation.

On that day, many eyes were still on eager Juror 6, who had folded his arms during prosecutor Clymer’s closing statement the day before--the gesture some called a sign of his resistance to the prosecution.

On Saturday, as arguments were concluded, all 12 jurors seemed transfixed by Braun’s passionate final statement for the defense, comparing the trial of the four officers to case of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. At a peak moment, however, Juror 6 again leaned back and folded his arms--the same greeting he had given opposing attorney Clymer.

One person who did not notice was Braun. As the courtroom cleared, the defense attorney said he consciously avoided studying the juror’s reaction.

“I can’t pay attention to that,” he said. “I’d go nuts.”