The Verdict on Making Jury Duty Miserable: Guilty

Tuesday’s sentencing of Damian Williams and Henry Watson underscored what a difficult time this has been for jurors.

At best, jury duty can be unpleasant, and people try to avoid it. Los Angeles County sent out 2.9 million postcard requests to potential jurors last year. Almost 40% of those didn’t even bother to reply. A huge number were excused, many, no doubt, for questionable reasons. In the end, the county was left with a pool of only 407,000 prospective jurors.

Just 186,000 of those made it to a jury, which in part explains why so many people duck out. This statistic means that most prospective jurors do a lot of waiting, on top of putting up with crummy working conditions, bureaucratic whims and lawyers’ questions, only to find they don’t get picked for duty.

It was worse for those who made it to the high-profile, racially charged trials that began with the case of the police officers accused of beating Rodney G. King. They were thrust into the news media’s unforgiving spotlight and transformed in the eyes of some into instant villains. The jury in the first King beating trial was blamed for starting the 1992 riots. The Reginald O. Denny beating jury was accused of buckling under political pressure.

Watching the television coverage of the sentencing Tuesday morning, I was struck by the performance of a calm, intelligent woman with a pleasant smile and a slight laugh, Carolyn Walters, forewoman of the Denny beating jury.

Walters had survived it all, the tedium of the jury panel and the high pressure of being an unknown citizen thrust into the middle of a historic event. Her personal drama could have happened to anybody who received a summoning postcard from the county jury services office.

I liked her. She spoke with conviction. And she had enough guts to come down to the courthouse on the day of sentencing, face the press and take the heat. A reporter asked if anyone had told her the jury’s verdict wasn’t fair.

“Quite a few,” she said with a smile.

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I had just served on a case that was as low-profile as Walters’ was high. Our jury heard misdemeanor contempt charges brought against a father accused of refusing to pay child support.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Frank Lukus piled on the evidence. The man owned a house in San Bernardino County and had thousands of dollars in certificates of deposit. Clearly, he could afford the $325-a-month payments.

Making his already bad situation worse, the defendant chose to represent himself. Municipal Judge Ronald Schoenfeld gave him a lot of slack. But in the end, the defendant demonstrated the truth of the old saying that he who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.

I’ve complained about the misery of jury duty. But all this is forgotten when the bailiff closes the door of the jury room and you begin deliberating.

This is a big job, much more difficult than that other participatory exercise, voting. Your single vote doesn’t really determine an election. But on a jury, you actually have a say in whether to send someone to humiliation, bankruptcy, prison or death.

We looked at the documents. We discussed the evidence. Our forewoman, a hotel executive, kept the discussion moving, but it was free-flowing. Whenever a juror spoke, the others listened respectfully.

It didn’t take long for the forewoman to see we pretty much agreed. She suggested a vote, which turned out 12 to 0 for guilty.

But even after voting, some of the jurors wanted to go over the documents one more time. Then we returned to court, and turned in our verdict. As we left the courtroom, a colleague on the jury said to me that even though it was an easy decision, “I had sweaty palms when I wrote down guilty.” It was, he said, a heavy responsibility.

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There’s a lot that can be done to remove some of the unpleasantness that accompanies the responsibility.

First, fix the phone system. You can reach a bankrupt airline easier than getting through to the jury office. The county jury office tells me a new system is on the drawing board, but the money for it hasn’t been appropriated. I know the county is short of money. But this is important.

It’s also important to make waiting more pleasant. Why don’t they have small television sets, more tables and desks with phone jacks for computers? And what about going after the people who duck out of jury duty? Jury system officials are working on a program to catch these scofflaws and enlarge the jury pool. They should hurry up.

Such suggestions won’t ease the stress of high-profile trials like those of the past year and a half. Whenever Carolyn Walters mentions she was jury forewoman in the Denny beating trial, she’s in for an argument, or at least a long discussion.

But reform will help the jurors feel they are treated with the consideration and respect warranted by such an important public service.