And Justice for All

I completed my jury service yesterday afternoon. When I showed up at the Hall of Justice a week ago Wednesday, my hope was to be excused. I'm self-employed and have obligations to my clients and there's nobody else who can do my job for me. The last thing I need is to be unavailable for several days. Both prosecution and defense had good reasons to excuse me. One of the charges was robbery, and I was recently the (alleged) victim of a robbery. Another of the charges was drug-related and I felt obligated to tell the judge that I am opposed to many drug laws. Much to my surprise, neither attorney used their peremptory challenges on me. A week ago Thursday I was sworn in as Juror #7 in the People vs. Marcellus Carpenter. After the initial shock of being selected wore off, my attitude quickly focused on the awesome nature of my responsibility.

Carpenter was charged with beating up and robbing 62 year-old Beverly Sanders at a San Francisco subway station in July 2001. Sanders suffered a large bump on the head, a laceration on her cheek and some bruises. Carpenter was caught by police officers minutes after the attack carrying Sanders' purse. Sanders identified Carpenter at the time, as did several other eyewitnesses. Carpenter was also found to be in possession of a crack pipe. Those were the basic facts.

The trial took place every afternoon between last Thursday and this Tuesday. We heard from Sanders, the arresting officers and the eyewitnesses. Carpenter was represented by a public defender, who did not present a case. The prosecutions case was convincing. But it was not impenetrable. Only Sanders among the witnesses saw Carpenter's face during the crime. The others id'd him only by clothing and build. The defense tried to poke holes in the credibility of all of the identifications, and he even tried to make hay of the fact that the police had destroyed some of the evidence. But he did not offer any plausible alternative theory that might explain the prosecution's evidence. Carpenter sat silent during the entire proceedings. I did not once hear his voice. He was all alone, except for his defense attorney. Not a single friend or family member came to support him.

The jury started deliberations on Wednesday afternoon. By this time the crack pipe possession charge had been dismissed, the pipe was one of the pieces of missing evidence. The twelve of us quickly concluded that the totality of all the identifications along with the purse possession was sufficient beyond a reasonable doubt. The missing evidence was determined to be immaterial in this instance. In short, the defense did not produce enough doubt to dent the body of evidence presented by the prosecution. By the end of the day Wednesday, we were unanimous in deciding that Carpenter was guilty of Robbery; Assault likely to inflict serious bodily injury; and Receiving stolen property.

The only remaining controversy was regarding the severity of Sander's injuries. We had to determine (separately) whether the Robbery and the Assault inflicted "great bodily injury" and also whether a separate count of Battery inflicted "serious bodily injury". We spent a lot of time debating any possible differences between "great" and "serious" injuries, and how to classify Sanders' injuries. "Great" and "Serious" bodily injury have distinct definitions under California law. Both definitions are highly imprecise. Some of us felt that Sanders' injuries were merely "moderate" (myself included) others felt the injuries were "serious" but not "great" or "great" but not "serious" or both "great" and "serious". The foreperson sent a note to the judge asking to explain the difference between "great" and "serious". The judge wrote back to clarify that they were "substantially the same". I proposed a compromise that we would find the injuries "serious" but not "great" which would mean convicting the defendent on four felonies, while also making the statement that the injuries were more serious than "moderate" but not really, really serious (like a broken leg or loss of eye). Most of the jurors were okay with this, but a few had difficulty with the inconsistency of finding the injuries "serious" but not "great" when the two were substantially the same. We adjourned at 5pm and had to come back another day. I was very tempted to inflict both "great" and "serious" bodily injury upon the small-minded man who was so preoccupied with being consistent that he forced me to spend another afternoon with him.

Thursday afternoon we reconvened to again debate the wholly subjective nuances of "great" and "serious" injuries. Most of us were on board with Wednesday's compromise, but Mr. Consistency was only willing to agree that the injuries were EITHER "both great and serious" (too harsh for some of the jurors to accept) OR "neither great nor serious" (too light for some of the jurors). He didn't care about the actual result, as long as it was consistent. After an hour of this I staged a temper tantrum and said that we're not trying to reach some unattainable ideal of celestial justice, only to implement justice in a practical way; that I am most comfortable with "neither great nor serious" but will comprimise with "serious but not great" in order to split the difference and accommodate the positions of the other jurors. At this point, we would be convicting the defendant on either three or four felonies, so justice is served and debating whether the injuries are "great" or "serious" is like counting angels on the head of a pin and won't make any practical difference, the defendant is already toast and it's not worth anybody's time to debate this any more so you guys go ahead and decide whatever you want about "great" or "serious", and I'll go along with whatever the group decides. And to show I was "serious", I pulled out the crossword puzzle that I brought along for exactly this purpose. The remaining doubters quickly signed on to the compromise before I even started to look at the crossword. We were done, the sausage was made. All make nice and shake hands, and reaffirm to ourselves that the decision serves justice. Carpenter is convicted of four felonies, yet we didn't convict him of the severest possible charges, which is consistent with our collective assessment that the Sanders' injuries were "serious", but not "very serious".

We are reseated in the jury box, the judge reads the verdicts to herself with a quizzical look on her face, then the clerk reads out the verdicts also with a quizzical look on her face. Carpenter remains silent, barely reacting. This is a man who appears to have long ago given up any hope for his life. The prosecutor asks to poll the jury. One by one we all affirm that the verdicts reflect our own votes. The judge sends us back into the deliberating room while she confers with the attorneys, then she calls us back in, thanks us for our service, tells us we are now free to discuss the case and our deliberations, but nobody can require us to discuss it. All the information about the jurors will be sealed. We file out of the courtroom.

The prosecutor spends a few minutes out in the hall chatting with some of us and answering our questions. It turns out that Carpenter has a record of prior convictions, but he's not a "three strikes" candidate. He was on parole at the time he committed the robbery, so he's been kept in custody for the past seventeen months. Sentencing for the new convictions will take place in another month or so. I told the prosecutor that while I wouldn't call this a pleasant experience, it was an important experience and it gave me a richer sense of my citizenship. I didn't mention this to him, but when you consider that in some other parts of the world the criminal justice system looks like this, serving on a jury is a profound privilege. Even if it interrupts your business for a few days.

And the prosecutor explained the quizzical looks worn by the judge and her clerk during the reading of the verdict. The case law has interpreted "great bodily injury" and "serious bodily injury" to be interchangeable terms. So they were surprised we decided that the injuries were "serious" but not "great".

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at December 20, 2002 08:00 AM