The Jury System: Still Working, But Skewed By Jurors With Agendas : PLATFORM

While the world focused on the latest twists in the O.J. Simpson trial last month, a group of jurors just two floors away in the Criminal Courts Building quietly decided a case that was at least as important to public safety. A man accused of 18 counts of rape, sodomy, oral copulation, robbery and kidnaping for sexual purposes faced a possible sentence of more than 100 years in prison.

After listening to 10 days of evidence and deliberating for six days, the jury returned guilty verdicts on 12 counts. But the case took its toll: Many jurors experienced sleepless nights and became physically ill while deliberating. Yet most said they’d do it again.

Two weeks after the trial, some jurors and the judge spoke with Times staff writer KEVIN BAXTER about the case and their feelings about the jury system in general. EUGENE M. HOUGH

Retired electrosystems worker,

Temple City

It’s an interesting experience. You realize the magnitude of what’s happening. You have the life of the defendant balanced against some things he’s alleged to have done. And I can’t say that once the trial was over, you just forget about it, because it’s been running through my mind ever since.

In the long run, after six days of discussions--sometimes friendly and sometimes not--I think maybe we came to the proper decision. But it always has to be in the back of your mind that you may miss something. So you really have to balance the right of society to be protected against the fact that you might make a mistake.

We had a very friendly atmosphere. This was the thing that I really enjoyed. We met a lot of nice people who, regrettably, we may never see again. But as usual in a trial as complicated as this, you have conflicting personalities. So we had some rather sharp words from time to time. Afterward we all made it understood that it wasn’t personalities, it was ideologies.

What I found both times I’ve been on a jury is that we have people who have preconceived ideas and they don’t base (their judgments) on the evidence. This is what causes long drawn - out deliberations. Maybe a panel of three judges (instead of a jury) would expedite things.

I think it will be very difficult for those people on that O.J. trial to concentrate with all of that hubbub all the time. A trial shouldn’t be decided in the media and I’m afraid that that one is headed that way.

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LORI MOORE

Secretary for L.A. public library system, West Los Angeles

I’m glad it’s over with, but I would absolutely do it again. It felt good to be able to give something back.

I still think about it. I think about all the victims. Also the defendant, wondering how his experience is in jail. And just wondering how the victims have come away from this, if they’ve made some progress in getting over this experience that they’ve had.

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CATHY ROMERO

Employee publications, Kaiser Permanente, Rosemead

It really gets down to all the personalities when you start deliberating. Those of us who agreed on a guilty verdict thought the evidence was clear. It was just hard to believe the three dissenters. We were like, “Can’t you see it? Can’t you see it?” That was very frustrating.

I got to the edge, so close to where I would say, “Golly, I should really bail on this.” My employer only pays for 10 days of jury duty and we were there for 16 days. But I really felt committed to just sticking it out as far as I could. I took it very seriously. And as far as I could see, the majority of jurors felt that way.

It’s hard to get a fair verdict, I think. It’s really hard to be objective. You try, you really try, based on the evidence. You’d like to think that people are innocent until proven guilty, but I don’t think most people really believe that.

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DAVE ARGIRO

Sales department employee for Blue Shield, West Hollywood

This was my first time on jury duty. I found it to be very rewarding and very interesting as well. I had some doubts about the system before I went in there, but this kind of gave me a feel of why certain things may or may not happen. You know, if you feel someone on TV is guilty and they end up being not guilty, that was upsetting to me. Now I know why that may come around--just because of the reasonable doubt issue.

But I would definitely make some modifications. Trying to get 12 people to agree on one thing is just virtually impossible. I truly believe that if we had a videotape of what happened, even then we’d still have one person saying that there was a possibility that it didn’t happen. Maybe not all 12 people have to come to a verdict together. It shouldn’t have to be unanimous.

I did take the case home with me toward the end. Once we started deliberations, I tossed and turned all night. I was thinking it about over the weekend. I would go over and over in my head why (some jurors) were thinking “not guilty.” And it just did not make sense.

The Judge’s View

JACQUELINE CONNOR

L.A. County Superior Court judge

I don’t think there’s any other experience in our society that gives you more hands-on involvement in a democracy. The jurors’ decision as to what happened is the truth of the case. So it’s a pretty incredible power.

The problem I see now is that so many people are trying to get out of jury duty without ever having experienced it.

Many people with substance or education have figured out a way to ignore it or get off of it. That’s affecting justice for all of us and it’s affecting the quality of our system.

I think justice is still being served, but we’re getting more and more people with agendas that are skewing the results--somebody who hates cops, somebody who’s willing to convict anybody because they’re sick of gangs--trying to get on jury duty. That type of thing instead of a broader-based group of people, opened-minded and willing to base their decision not on what they’re worried about when they go home at night but on what they see in front of them.

This jury worked awfully hard. I’m sure there was a lot of wrangling going on. You get 12 people who have never seen each other before and sometimes the discussions are very agreeable, and everyone sees things the same way. Other times you get diametrically opposed positions yet somehow the jury system seems to work.

I am just so glad they didn’t give up, which some jurors might have. We would have had to do the whole thing over again at a cost of $10,000 a day, having the victims go through it again, having the defendant go through it again.

I’m so grateful that they didn’t give up, whatever the result might have been.