You get me one coffee drinker on that jury, you're gonna walk out of there a rich man.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I had jury duty last month, which ended up lasting a week and a half. In this blog, I’m going to discuss my day of jury selection and an outline of what it was like to sit on a jury. I’m not, however, going to discuss the case in detail. The case was a sexual assault case, and I think going into details of it on a public forum like this would not be in anyone’s best interest. HOWEVER, because the case had a lot of twists, bizarre moments, and also some disturbing parts, I am writing up my thoughts and recollections of the case. It really was interesting on several levels, even if the case itself dealt with some really upsetting testimony and exhibits. So I’ll say this, that if anyone really wants the details and minutiae of the case, at least from my perspective, email me and I’ll send you my recap. Just be forewarned – it’s not going to be pleasant reading.

But for this blog, I’ll stick with the non-case related story. It all started, as so many stories do, on a cold, wet day in August, when I received my jury summons in the mail. The summons was for the Middlesex County Superior Court in Lowell, MA, reporting on Monday, Oct. 25. I got called for jury duty once before, in Montgomery County, MD, and the MA one was similar in that it was for either 1 day or 1 trial; meaning if you don’t get picked for a trial that day, your service is complete and you won’t get called again for 3 years. That time in MD I sat in the jury pool room for most of the day, never left to even go to a courtroom, picked up my $20 and left.

So October was winding down, and with it was a lot of work at the office. Our budgets are due every year at the end of October, which I didn’t think about when I decided not to postpone jury duty, and this year it seemed that the budgeting wasn’t going well. So on the Friday before I was set to report I was to call to see if I was needed, and was hoping that I wouldn’t be. My luck wasn’t with me as I was required to report Monday morning at 8 am.

I get to Lowell that Monday morning around 7:45 am. This was my first time in Lowell, and my initial reaction was this: It’s a complete pit. Granted, I didn’t get downtown where the National Historic Park is, and where they’re trying to rebuild around the river, but from what I did see, it’s not a pretty town. I head into the courthouse, through the security, and into the jury pool room. I check in and am given my jury pool number: 56. Right away, I’m thinking this is my lucky day. First, #56 belonged to Corey Moore at Virginia Tech, my favorite all-time Hokie. Second, just 2 days before this his jersey had been retired at Lane Stadium. This could only be seen as a harbinger of good things to come, and I just knew it was going to be my lucky day. After getting my number I found a seat on one of several very uncomfortable wooden benches. This was remarkably different than my MD jury duty, which had individual chairs and desks, all very comfortable and evenly spaced out around a very large pool room. These benches were all crowded together, and everyone was squeezed in to these rigid blocks of wood. I pulled out my laptop to see if they had wireless there, but the only signal was from the Registry of Deeds which required a sign-in to access. This shouldn’t have been surprising, as the courthouse was extremely old as well (I found out later it was built in the 1850’s), and as I sat in the pool room I noticed other signs of the building’s age: peeling paint, water spots on the ceiling and walls, extremely old plumbing and rusty radiators. I’m not sure where all my tax money goes to, but some of it really should be directed toward the courthouse infrastructure in Lowell.

So I sat around reading for half an hour or so and the room filled up with about 70-75 people. One of the jury officers played a video for us (yes, VHS) that was projected on a TV that had to be from the 1980’s. The video itself seemed to be produced around 1991, based on the bad hair and clothing. After the video, which really didn’t say anything exciting at all, one of the judges from upstairs came down to speak for a while about the importance of jury trials, the constitution, etc. Then he mentioned that there were 2 trials being seated that day: 1 in the civil courtroom, 1 in the criminal courtroom. He said we’d first go up to the civil, and anyone who wasn’t picked for that one would go to the criminal court. He bid us adieu and I went back to my book.

A little past 9 am a court officer took everyone up to the civil courtroom, where the presiding judge was Judge Fishman. He gave a quick rundown of the case he was presiding over, which involved a guy suing a company he worked for when he got hurt on the job in 2003. The first thing he did was to ask ALL jurors a variety of questions, such as “Do you know any of the lawyers or potential witnesses”, or “Have you ever done business with the company being sued”. If we answered “Yes” to any of the questions we were to raise our jury card (that has our number on it), and a court officer would read off your number to the court. A "Yes" answer didn’t automatically excuse you, but if you were brought up as a prospective juror you would be asked to give more information as to why you answered “yes” before being seated.

After Judge Fishman’s general questions, they began to bring jurors up, one at a time, to the bench where the judge and both lawyer’s could talk to the juror privately. They began by calling up juror #1, then #2, then #3. I began to realize they were going in numerical order! Being number 56, I felt pretty good, but wasn’t getting ahead of myself. Only a few jurors were excused, and they finished seating all 12 jurors (no alternates on this case, I guess) around number 16. By 10 am the rest of us were all back down in the jury pool room. At this point, being #56, I was feeling pretty good that I’d be out of there by Noon.

I sat back in the jury pool room for another hour or so, and then around 11 am they brought the rest of us jurors back upstairs, this time to the criminal courtroom. This courtroom was where Judge Chernoff sat, and he ended up being a talker. Whereas Fishman took about 5 minutes explaining how the process was going to work, Chernoff took at least 30 minutes. Granted, the case was more complex, but it still felt like it went on forever. The judge mentioned that they would seat 14 jurors on this trial, and that 2 of the 14 would be alternates. Chernoff went through the same process as Fishman, asking general questions of everyone, and we were to hold up our juror numbers if the answer was "yes". His questions, however, were more involved, and this was the point where we discovered the case was a sexual assault case. So after the general questions he began to bring up the jurors one at a time, once again starting with juror #1. (#1 was dismissed from the civil case, which is why he was back in the pool.) This time each juror was given a piece of paper to read, and then approached the bench to talk to the judge with the Assistant District Attorney and the Defendant’s lawyer listening in. Each time that a woman came up, she seemed to spend more time talking with the judge than the men. Every once in a while a person was placed in the jury box as “Juror #1”, or whatever seat they ended up in, while all the others were simply sent to the back of the courtroom to sit on more really uncomfortable benches. After 30 minutes or so, I realized that this was going to take a long time, and I busted out my book and started to read. Being #56, and them starting at #1 and working their way up again, I didn’t think there was any chance they’d get to my number. However, more and more folks were being sent to the back of the courtroom instead of being sat on the jury, and they got all the way to #40 or so before they had all 14 seats filled on the jury. But even at this point we weren’t done, as they started excusing the seated jurors. Each side of the case was allowed to excuse up to 6 of the seated jurors without giving reason. So they called 3 of the seated jurors, dismissed them, and then started interviewing more numbers to fill up the seats of those who were dismissed. Me and the two guys next to me were keeping track of how many they had gone through, and it was looking like I was still going to be okay. After they filled in those 3, they dismissed 3 more. They went through about 5 more jurors to fill in those 3 seats, and then they dismissed seat #14. They must have dismissed and replaced seat #14 about 4 times before they finally settled on someone.

At this point we were up to juror #54, but it looked like both sides had agreed on everyone, and there were only 2 replacements left to the attorneys, so I think I’m going to make it. Then all of sudden they asked juror #1 to come to the sidebar. This was unusual, as everyone else who had been seated and dismissed was simply excused, but they weren’t asked to come back to the bench to talk to the judge. So they all talked for a while, and then juror #1 was dismissed. Now they call up #55, who happened to be a woman. Again, the judge spoke with her for a while, she made a couple of disgusted faces, and she ends up going to the back of the courtroom. So now it’s my turn to go to the bench. The judge brings up that this is a sexual assault case, and mentions that the trial will include graphic discussions as well as visual evidence of a graphic nature. The main question he had was whether those photos or evidence would prevent me from being an impartial juror. I said no, I thought I could power through and do what needed to be done. Then he asked whether there was anything else that could prevent me from serving on this jury. So I mentioned that I was going on vacation the following week. He asked when (and where – kind of nosy), and I said we were leaving next Thursday for Virginia (this was our long weekend in Blacksburg for the Virginia Tech/Georgia Tech game). He said something like, “The lawyers both think that this case will go no longer than a week, but even if it went longer than that, I assure you that you won’t miss your vacation”. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant…if he would have to excuse me, then why not just say that? Anyway, he said I should go sit in seat #1. So now I’m thinking, okay, I know that the lawyers have only dismissed 10 jurors, so they have 2 more available to go. Before this point I was hoping they’d get through all their dismissals BEFORE my # came up. Now I’m hoping they’ll use one on me! So I sit down, and wait to see what happens. Before, whenever a juror had been seated, the lawyers would talk for 30 seconds or so, then the clerk would say the juror was dismissed. I sat there for a little bit, noticed the lawyers talking, and then the lawyers sat down for the first time during the entire jury selection. And it was that moment that I knew I was not going anywhere.

So that was how I ended up being juror #1. The judge told us that we’d be sitting on the jury each day from 9 am to 1 pm, although they had some other business to do the next day (Tuesday), so that we didn’t need to arrive until 10 am. (The courtroom was needed in the afternoon for motions and other court business, as it was the only criminal courtroom in the building.) He mentioned again that they expected the trial to last a week, and he dismissed us back to the jury room, which was located at the rear of the courtroom. The jury room was not welcoming. It was very old and very small. It was almost perfectly square, and had an equally square table right in the middle of the room. There were padded chairs all lined up around the walls of the room, and it left barely enough room to walk around the table. There were also 2 small bathrooms off the jury room, although neither offered much in the way of privacy, if you know what I mean. A jury officer came in and introduced himself as Sal. Sal looked to be in his 50’s, definitely Irish, and with a gregarious personality. He asked us to return around 9:45 tomorrow, and then dismissed us. With my big workload at work, plus budgets going on, I had no choice but to drive from Lowell to Brookline and do my work. As fate would have it, I ended up doing that almost every day for the next week and a half.

Since we didn’t have to show up on Tuesday until 9:45, I didn’t leave the house until 8:40 am. This wasn’t smart, as the traffic that time of day on 95/128 is pretty bad, and it took me about an hour to get there. This stressed me out, which was not what I wanted when showing up for jury duty. I decided that the next day I would get there early and find a place to eat breakfast before going into court. (Also, since we were going to be there from 9 to 1 each day, I figured a big breakfast would get me easily through the morning.) We were told to amass in the jury room, and that first morning we began to sit around and talk. Interestingly enough, none of us introduced ourselves to each other. I don’t know why that was, but I think we felt the need to stay a little bit detached from each other, considering that we may be at each other’s throats in a week during deliberations. But there was some small talk, sports, TV shows, etc. Someone even told a Treaty of Ghent joke, if you can believe it. Around 10 am, Sal came in and told us he was going to bring us in soon, and when we did, we needed to order ourselves in line by jury number. Me being Juror #1, I’d be first in line and leading the jury out into the courtroom every time we entered.

The first day started with the judge’s jury instructions, which took about 45 minutes. Then the opening statements from each side, each of which took about an hour. After a short break back at the jury room, Sal handed us each a notepad and pencil. He said that we were allowed to take as many or as few notes as we wanted during the trial, but that each night the notebooks had to stay in the court (locked in the judge’s chambers), and that at the end of the trial the notebooks would be destroyed. So really they were only to be used for us to keep notes on the testimony and evidence in case we needed it during our deliberations. The day ended with the first witness of the day. We finished around 1 pm, and I was off to work.

As I mentioned above, not wanting to get stuck in traffic and potentially being late at the courthouse, I left at my normal time in the morning of 7 am, and this time I got to Lowell in about 40 minutes. I had found a diner online called the Four Sisters Owl Diner (Sage referred to it as the Nite Owl) which was only a few blocks from the courthouse. It was a great old place with a 4-star dive quality to it. I ate at the counter while reading a book, and the breakfast was good, satisfying, and quick – just what I wanted. Lowell, however, wasn’t so great. I’ve walked around New York and DC at night, by myself, plenty of times, and I actually felt more scared walking 4 blocks in Lowell at 7:45 am than I have ever been in a big city. I’m not 100% sure why that was…it just felt like I was always about 20 seconds away from being mugged.

I got to the jury room around 8:40 am, and found out that some of the jurors were going to be late. A bad accident on the ramp between 495 and 93 closed the road in both directions, and 2 of the jurors were stuck in traffic. (We were given the courthouse’s phone number the first day, and told to call if we ever were going to be late or delayed.) This made me even MORE happy that I got to town early, although I don’t think I would have been affected. The two late jurors both arrived around 9:10 am, and they said there was a truck fire that closed down the interstate. When they arrived, we assumed we would start right away. Unfortunately, the traffic also caused the Assistant District Attorney to be late as well. We ended up not starting until 9:50 – our 2nd day in a row that we started late, and I was starting to think that, with only 1 witness on the stand so far, that there was no way we were going to get done in 1 week. More witnesses followed this day, including some victim testimony, which was the first of many very uncomfortable and disturbing moments during the trial. Because we started late the judge said we would go late today, but that only ended up being until 1:20 pm. We were told to be back at 9 on Thursday, and I headed to work.

Day 4 started on time, and the upsetting testimony continued, along with the aforementioned photos we had to review. As the timing would have it, we were given our mid-morning break right after having to view those photos. As we all got back to the jury room, we all just stood there for about 20 or 30 seconds, with no one saying a word. Finally one of the other jurors said, “Could someone PLEASE talk about last night’s Celtics game?” That broke the tension, thankfully, and we fell back into our small talk routine. While talking with some of the jurors I learned that one of them told the judge that he might have to leave one day the following week because his wife was having surgery. (He wasn’t sure exactly which day, as she had to go in for a blood test the prior day before the doctor would clear her for surgery.) I mentioned as well that I told him that I couldn’t be there any later than next Wednesday as I had a vacation to get to. We were both surprised that we were placed on the jury in the first place, and everyone in the room thought that it was definitely going to be longer than a week. (Although, for the record, we NEVER spoke about any of the details of the case, as we were instructed. For the record.) That day finished after several more State witnesses, and we finished up around 1 pm again.

Day 5, Friday, supposedly the last day of the trial. The first thing the judge asked us if we could go late today, to try to get through as much of the trial as we could. We all agreed that yes, absolutely we could. We had more of the State’s witnesses, and we went until after 3 pm. At the end of the day, the judge had a sidebar with the lawyers, and when they finished he told us that they all thought the case would be done on Tuesday. By done, they didn’t mean we’d be totally complete; they just meant that the jury would begin deliberations that day. One of the other things I remember from that day was, during one of our breaks, someone asked Sal about the alternates and the foreperson. He told us that the alternates would be randomly selected right before deliberation – it wasn’t a given that jurors #13 and 14 were automatically the alternates. As far as the foreperson was concerned, he said, “Well, it depends on the judge. Sometimes he just picks whoever is in seat #1; other times, he’ll pick the last person who was seated on the jury.” Someone pointed at me and said, “Lucky you – both of those choices are you!” Yes, lucky me indeed. When we finally finished up for the day (with the State still calling witnesses), we were told to be back bright and early on Monday at 9 am.

On Monday, Day 6 of our jury duty, the State finally rested their case. The defense then called a couple witnesses, including the defendant, and that took up the entire day. The judge asked us if we’d arrive 30 minutes early on Tuesday, as they were hoping to fit in the rest of the testimony and closing arguments on the next day.

Tuesday arrived, which just also happened to be Election Day. I got up early, got to the voting station right at 7 am, then took off up to Lowell. We actually started about 15 minutes early, and after the State finished their cross-examination of the defendant, the defense rested and they started with the closing arguments. Each closing argument took about 1 hour each. After those, the judge went through his jury instructions, and that took about 45 minutes. There were all sorts of state law, interpretations and definitions of “reasonable doubt” and the laws of Massachusetts as they refer to rape, and that seemed to go on forever. Finally, the judge said it was almost time for deliberation, and it was time to choose the 2 alternates. He had the clerk put all of our names in a shoe box, and then drew out two of them. Guess what the 1st name he drew out of the box? “Juror #1, Douglas Wicinski”. I couldn’t believe it! I was really torn when I walked out of the jury box and sat down in the “alternate” area. Part of me (a small part, really) felt some relief. Relief that I wasn’t going to have to either decide the defendant’s fate, or on the other side, worrying about making the “wrong” decision and affecting the victim’s lives for a long time, if not forever. But the bigger part of me felt anger and disappointment. I had just spent over a week listening to testimony, taking detailed notes, and trying to be as impartial and open-minded as possible. And now I couldn’t even talk about the case! After that, the judge then picked a foreperson, although I didn't understand whether he did it randomly or just decided on someone himself. He then told the jury to head to the jury room, and had an officer escort me and the other alternate out of the courtroom.

The two of us were brought to another jury room in another courtroom in the building. The jury officer who escorted us told us that they were supposed to take our cell phones, but he just told us to keep them turned off and don’t take them out. He said that if there were any jury questions that needed the judge’s attention in the courtroom, that we’d be brought back in for that. Our main duty at this point was that if one of the other jurors had to be excused during the deliberations, the judge would randomly pick one of us alternates to replace him/her, and the deliberations would begin anew. He also said that when the verdicts would be read we’d be brought back in, so at least we’d know what happened. But otherwise we were to sit in this room, without talking to each other about the case at all, with no wireless access, alone to read a book or to stare into space. The officer (I didn’t get this guy’s name, and was already missing Sal) told us that there was a bell to ring if we needed anything, and since it was almost 1 pm, they’d bring in some lunch for us in a little bit. With that, he left, shut the door behind him, and I heard him put something across the door! After 20 minutes or so he came back with a pizza for us and some sodas. I asked him about what he does to the door when he leaves. “I put a piece a wood across it”, he told me. WHAT? What if there were a fire and we needed to get out? It turns out that wasn’t a big deal, as the door opened IN, so we could always get out, and he told us he was just outside the door anyway most of the time – it simply was there to tell people not to enter while we were in the room.

So after eating my pizza and chatting with the other alternate for a bit (she turned out to be one of the 5 most boring people in the world, so I really lucked out on that one too), I opened up my book and began to read. And that was how I passed 3 straight hours. After 4:30 or so, the officer came back and in and told us that the jury was deciding about how much longer they might need, or whether they would decide to come back tomorrow. Then, about 15 minutes later, he came back and said that they decided to stop for the day and start again tomorrow. They brought us back into the courtroom with everyone else, the judge told us not to talk about the case or read anything about the case, and that we should be back in the morning at 9 am. I was a little surprised that they hadn’t reached a verdict in the 3 ½ hours they had deliberated, but it was a semi-complicated case, and there were a total of 5 charges that had to be decided, so maybe it wasn’t that surprising. My main issue, if you could call it that, was that the next day, Wednesday, was going to have to be my last day no matter what, as we were leaving for Blacksburg on Thursday morning. (The other juror, who was waiting on his wife’s surgery, was still on the trial, but was on a day-by-day basis as well.) So the entire day was blown doing pretty much nothing, and I headed home feeling frustrated at the whole situation.

Wednesday, Day 8 of the jury duty, and I had another morning breakfast at the Owl (I was almost becoming a regular by now, as I hit the counter every morning). This day I overheard one of the waitresses say a classic line: “I’ve been unhappily married for 41 years – I’m not going to screw that up with a divorce!” It was a perfect way of ending my time at the Owl Diner, and that place was definitely the bright spot of Lowell for me. I showed up at our secondary jury room at 8:45, and at 9:00 am we were brought back into the courtroom. The judge asked all the jurors (including us alternates) whether we a) talked about the case, b) saw any coverage of the case in the news or newspapers, or c) had anyone approach us to talk about the case. No one did, so we alternates were brought back to the alternate jury room, while the jurors went back to their deliberation. The one good thing about being an alternate was that this jury room (which appeared to be the jury room for the civil courtroom) was much roomier than the other one. There was a lot more space, an old fireplace, and windows that actually opened. None of those things, however, were very helpful for passing time, as I prepared for another day (of who knows how long) of doing nothing.

But I did come a little bit prepared this day. I brought my laptop and cleaned out my emails a bit, then tucked into a pretty good book called In Pale Battalions by Robert Goddard. Around 11:50 am, we heard the door opening. Expectations were high that the other 12 had finally reached a verdict. Alas, it was just the officer bringing in a menu for us to order lunch. We ordered sandwiches, and about an hour later Sal came back in with our sandwiches and to see how we were doing. He mentioned that the jurors had asked for a copy of the judge’s instructions, and also said, “they’re working hard in there…they have the chalkboard in there all covered with writing”. That didn’t necessarily sound like progress to me, and I was wondering whether I should ask Sal whether it was even worth it for me to stick around. After all, if the trial went to another day I wouldn’t be able to attend, and the judge would have to dismiss me. And even if one of the other jurors was dismissed and I had to replace him/her, the deliberations were going to have to start from scratch again. Was it realistic that I’d be able to join them in the afternoon and reach a decision before the end of the day? But I didn’t bring it up, and just went back to reading my book.

By 4 pm I was sure that the jury would go to another day, and I ended up giving my email address to the other alternate so that she could at least email me and let me know what the verdict would be. But a little after 4 the door opened again, and the jury officer said, “They’ve reached a verdict…please get your things together.” Finally! So we gathered our belongings and headed back to the criminal courtroom. We sat in our alternate jury section while the other jurors came in. The clerk read the 5 counts, and the foreperson had to reply to each as to how the jury decided. The verdicts ended up being 2 guilty and 3 not guilty. After they were read the judge thanked us for our service, and they had us all (the 12 regular jurors and us 2 alternates) go back to the jury room, and he said he’d be in after a few minutes to talk to us. Once we got back into the jury room, it was a weird feeling, almost as if I was intruding on everyone else’s territory. I felt like an outsider; whereas during the entire trial I was one of the group, now I was an alien, interloping on their space. One of the jurors broke down in tears, and almost all the rest looked like they had gone through the ringer. After a few minutes the judge came in with Sal, and the judge gave us all a LOT of background information on the defendant that we (obviously) didn’t know during the trial. (Again, if you want the full story, just ask for my 40 page report.) I’m not sure if that information made it better or worse, nor the verdict easier or harder to take, but it was definitely enlightening. We were in there for about 20 minutes with the judge, and then we had a few minutes to ourselves before Sal and another of the officer’s said they’d walk us down to our cars in the jury lot. During that time we were asked about what we did during our “alternate” time, and I didn’t try to act like I had it hard at all, considering how tough they obviously had it in coming to their verdicts. I also started talking to a couple of the guys who I talked to the most during the trial, and asked about how they came to their verdicts. Their answers were interesting and helpful in understanding a bit on how they came to their decisions. I’m not 100% sure whether I entirely agreed with them, but without the benefit of talking through the entire testimony and evidence like they had, I couldn’t really say what was “right” or “wrong”.

After 5 minutes or so, Sal came back and escorted us to our cars. It was a strange feeling in that parking lot. Everyone was smiling by this point, saying goodbye to each other, wishing everyone well. But except for the alternate, I realized that I didn’t know one person’s name. It felt like all of us had experienced something deep and meaningful together, and yet I knew we’d never see each other again. One guy was getting into his car, and I said, “See you, #4”. He chuckled and said, “Goodbye, #1”. And that was it. I got in the car, pulled out of the lot, waved goodbye to Sal, and drove out of Lowell.

And that ended my jury duty for the Superior Court of Massachusetts. It was an extremely strange, interesting, bizarre, disturbing, and fascinating time. Also quite boring a lot of the time, and also very inconvenient. (After that last day, and leaving Lowell at 4:45 pm, I had to go into work to finish up a bunch of stuff as I hadn’t been in the office for 2 days and was going to be on vacation for 2 more.) I’ve always thought that being on a jury would be kind of fun. Unfortunately the details of this case made it anything but fun, and during the entire jury selection I was hoping beyond hope that I wouldn’t get picked. But part of me is thankful I had to go through with it. I still have a hard time “letting go” of the case – probably because I never had the chance to really talk about it with the jury – and I’d like to think that, even without being on the official jury, I did my civic duty. As one of the jurors said during our time in the jury room, “As far as doing our patriotic duty, I’d say that doing this is a lot easier than carrying a rifle in Kandahar”. I’d have to agree with that.