Jury Deliberations: Discussion or Decision?

When we entered the jury room to begin deliberations, I could tell that the room contained nervous energy. Questions running through people's mind might have been: "Will the other's agree with me?" "How long might we be in here?" "How does this work?"

When our jury entered the room, they did not provide any further instructions. They did not stand by to help facilitate the discussion. The bailiff simply locked the door, asked us to choose a foreperson, and let us know where the buzzer was if we needed something. When the door closed, we were on our own. At first I thought it might take some time to find a foreperson, but we ended up having some nominations right away and voted very quickly. I discovered that the foreperson plays a crucial role in facilitation.

How the foreperson organizes deliberations can determine the length of deliberations or in the extreme case, mean the difference in a hung jury or a decision. I was not the foreperson on our jury and I believe that our foreperson did a fine job considering he, like us all, has probably not had training in being a foreperson. But with this experience now, I believe that anyone can be a foreperson - it does not require special training.

To me, the job of the foreperson is to fairly faciliate a decision that meets the requirements of the law. In our case, our foreperson and the jury did a great job facilitating discussion and hearing everyone out, but we did not set out a process by which we could return a Guilty or Not Guilty Verdict. Fairly facilitating a decision is the goal. In this process, facilitating discussion and ensuring everyone is heard is very important, but not the end goal.

If I were to be able to do this trial again, and if I were to be elected the foreperson, I would structure the discussion for this case by writing each of the 7 traffic violations on the chalkboard with one column next to it. In the column, we would note whether the jury believed that the defendant was Not Guilty or Guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. I then would have asked the jury to decide on each of the traffic violations. If all were not guilty, then we would have no need to decide on the "wanton disregard" requirement. If there were any where we all agreed, that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, then we would discuss if the defenedent was also guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of wanton disregard. I believe if we had followed this process, we would have come to a decision in 2 to 3 hours instead of 5 1/2 hours. I did not think about this during that time and believe we delivered a verdict as rapidly as we could have. But this learning is very interesting and while I doubt it would be legal, it would be great if part of the jury instructions included the point that the foreperson should fairly facilitate a decision that meets the requirements of the law.

On the other hand, the beauty of the jury system is that 12 average people can come together and make decisions about the facts and evidence presented without being encumbered by pre-determined processes.