Platform : Jurors: ‘They’re Serious People With Different Opinions’

MANNY MABUNGA

Municipal court clerk, Santa Monica

I was on one jury that (was) hung and another that almost hung except we had a good foreperson who wanted to go the extra yard, so we kept deliberating until we reached a verdict.

The jury that almost hung had whites, blacks, Latinos, a Japanese and a Filipino--me. We were trying a black man for drunk driving. The two black jurors and the Japanese juror were all from South-Central and said police were always hassling people like the defendant. Therefore they tended to believe him over the police.

The defendant said his wife was driving and that the reason he was seen getting out in his driveway from the driver’s side was because he always parked next to a fence and couldn’t open the passenger door. Then during deliberations one juror looking at photos of the driveway noticed that oil stains from the car were in the middle of the driveway, not next to the fence, which undermined the driver’s credibility and enabled everyone to vote guilty.

In the case where the jury hung, one woman said she wanted to be foreperson. But we elected someone else and from that moment on she was contrary to everything we agreed on. People screamed and screamed at each other but in the end she didn’t change and the jury hung 11-1. I think it was great they removed a juror if she really failed to deliberate in the Denny beating trial. I wish our jury had known we could have done that.

ADRIENNE COOKSEY

Administrative assistant, Palmdale

I actually enjoyed (jury duty). It was a criminal case. I think it’s something everyone should do at least once.

It’s a lot of responsibility. When you go into the jury room and you begin to deliberate, you’re talking about a person’s future. That’s why in the (Reginald Denny case) the rumor of a juror who wanted to see her boyfriend really troubled me.

(Our jury) was very mixed racially and gender-wise. Some (took it seriously). Some didn’t. We did get into some discussions (about) the interpretation of the law. We got along fine. We could not talk about the case among ourselves outside the court (and) there didn’t seem to be any tension or animosity that flowed from the jury room. We literally left it behind. We were not sequestered so the case did not live with us.

HENRY WALTON

Union official, Redondo Beach

On our first vote, our jury voted 9-3 to convict the defendant, but in the end we acquitted him.

I was the foreman--I’m African-American--and except for one woman who was a Pacific Islander, the rest of the jurors were Caucasian. The jurors were very different: one was a salesman who tried to sell us insurance during breaks; one was a college student killing time before a trip she’d won to the Bahamas and so forth. When we got in the jury room, one young man said he believed it was the jury’s duty to lean toward the prosecution. This touched off a heated discussion until we all agreed juries should start out neutral. Then this woman (who was) about 65 and had been born in Germany insisted that police don’t lie, and this galvanized those who said the evidence showed otherwise. They started switching their votes to not guilty.

What had happened was a Perry Mason kind of thing. A Filipino teen-ager had been charged with drunk driving and he and two teen friends used a lot of slang we could hardly understand and made awful witnesses. A policeman testified he’d followed the teen’s car and so forth. Then an independent witness showed up, a neighbor who said he’d been watching out his window, and he backed up the teens instead of the policeman.

The neighbor was Japanese and this same woman juror said maybe he was lying because both he and the teen were Asian. Other jurors were shocked and the college student said, “You have no right to assume someone would lie because of prejudice!” Finally the woman was convinced. This week because of the Denny trial there was talk about a need for professional jurors. That scared me because I immediately remembered this woman. She was very proud of the fact she’d served on six juries, and that all of (them) had convicted everyone who came before them.

JESS DAILY

Chief studio projectionist, Culver City

I’ve been (a juror) on two criminal cases. I remember having an overwhelming sense of responsibility. When you’re thinking about a decision (that) could mean a person spends the next 10, 20 or 30 years in prison, everybody took it seriously. That phrase--”beyond a reasonable doubt”--really meant something.

(In) the first case, the first vote we took most people voted guilty. I was one of two or three who did not. I thought the guy was probably guilty, but I didn’t feel the evidence presented in court, which is the only thing you’re supposed to make a decision on, was beyond a reasonable doubt. At the end of the deliberations, (which) lasted two or three days, there was an overwhelming vote of not guilty.

The other case was more serious: a drive-by shooting. There were people of all colors and backgrounds on the jury, (and) everybody hated this kind of behavior and had a terrible prejudice against (the) gangs that were involved. When we went (into the jury room), I thought, “It’ll be a short deliberation. This guy’s sunk for good.” Well, it wasn’t short. People took very seriously the fact that (the defendant) could spend years in prison. He was convicted on (only) one count out of three. That “beyond a reasonable doubt” came into play. I thought the guy probably did all of it. I still do. But I couldn’t vote in that direction in the jury room because I didn’t feel the evidence was there.

CHRIS RILEY

Script coordinator, Sylmar

I was probably the most cautious member of my jury. When it began to look as if everyone would vote the two defendants guilty of burglary, I began to feel the weight of our responsibility. I would say: “Wait, let’s be sure we’ve gone over everything and that there’s no other reasonable explanation for what the evidence indicates.”

We found both defendants guilty of taking a big air compressor. The most emotional part of the weeklong trial was walking back into the courtroom, knowing the defendants would probably go to jail because of us.

Our jury was about one-third Latino and the rest Caucasian. The defendants were Latino and no one raised that issue at all. We talked about what reasonable doubt meant and I was impressed by the quality of the process. Our jury really worked like the system is supposed to work. It was a very important exercise in democracy. When you vote for President you affect the whole country, but you have one vote among millions. As a juror you affect someone’s whole life and are one vote in 12.

The week our jury deliberated was the same week the jury in Simi Valley was deliberating in the first trial of the police accused of beating Rodney King. On breaks I would listen about it on the radio. I was very surprised by that jury’s verdict.

BETTY MUELLER

Retired nursing educator, West Los Angeles

Differences in gender and age have caused more problems than racial differences in the juries I’ve served on--four criminal cases and some civil cases in the past 15 years.

Juries are wonderful. It’s wonderful that there are arguments and you’re forced to convince other people and yourself. Juries aren’t usually chummy. They’re serious people with different opinions, although you can get an occasional nut.

The shortest I ever deliberated was 15 minutes. We all agreed immediately that this Spanish-speaking man charged with breaking and entering was innocent. We took a little more time to go over everything just to be sure. On another jury, a homeless person was accused of attacking a harbor guy, but we all agreed pretty quickly that actually it was the harbor guy who’d attacked the poor homeless person.

The longest I ever deliberated was five days. Our jury had 10 whites and two blacks trying a kidnaping and rape of a Latino girl by a young black man while his friend, also black, held her down. I never got the feeling race influenced anyone. But the women got really annoyed at two men who couldn’t see the logic of our position. On one count these two didn’t want to convict the man who held her down. Tempers rose. Those men were just stubborn. Finally one came in one morning and said he now agreed with us.

The holdout was this aeronautical engineer who was extremely rigid. People were very patient and respectful to him. We tried everything, even acting out holding someone down for a rape and he did come around on other counts. But he dug in his heels on this one. Everybody else just gave up. Our jury was hung on that one count.

CHARLEEN VERSHAW

Teacher, Brea; spent 1 1/2 years as a juror in the Santa Ana trial of serial killer Randy Kraft, convicted in 1989 of sexual torture-slaying of 16 men

I can appreciate what those jurors must have gone through. While the Randy Kraft case was followed by the press, it wasn’t nearly as watched as these two, the Rodney King and Denny beating trials. For a jury to be together that long is a very trying. Tempers flare. When you have 12 people who come from different backgrounds, it’s bound to happen.

From my experience, we were completely unaware of what the public was thinking. We all tried to follow the judge’s instructions. And I believe a jury can remain objective. But when a case lasts as long as the Denny trial, or ours, there is a definite impact on your life. You want it to end so you can get back to normal--get back to your family, friends and career. But it’s difficult. And the experience stays with you for the rest of your life. I think this (Denny case) jury did the best job it could do. People should be willing to do their part to make the system work.