1-12-2015: Voir dire

Throughout this week, I will be attending a trial in the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas for a rape case with Judge Zmuda presiding. This is the first in a series of multiple posts about the trial. Each post will document that day's proceedings and what I learned.

The Lucas County Court of Common Pleas is often called state court, because individuals in this court are charged with state crimes. There is one common pleas court per county in the state of Ohio. This is a comparison between the federal court, in which individuals are charged with federal crimes.

All trials begin with a process called voir dire, which when the jury selected. The term voir dire comes from Old French meaning "to speak the truth" (side note: many individuals told me that this term comes from French when it actually comes from Old French; voir dire actually translates to "to see and say" in Modern French, which left me confused and thinking they were all wrong until I just now searched it).

The jury selection begins when all prospective jurors enter the courtroom and are sworn in. The prosecution and the defense then introduce themselves. Right away, Judge Zmuda begins to ask questions, starting with if jurors know individuals from either of the parties. The judge then reads the defendant's charges and asks the jurors if there is anything that may prevent them from making a fair and impartial decision. This is the first of many times that Judge Zmuda will ask the jurors this question. I see that although not much has happened, I already see prospective jurors becoming emotional from thinking of their past experiences when being asked what is the reason why they are unable to make a fair and impartial decision. This results in the excusal of three prospective jurors.

Judge Zmuda continued by reading names of witnesses, victims, and other individuals involved in the case, and asked the prospective jurors if they knew these individuals. Another question that the judge asked was if individuals had previously served on a jury, and if so, he asked for details regarding the trial. During all of the questioning, both the prosecution and the defense are taking careful notes of each individual and are thinking of questions that they would later ask.

The questions moved on to family to see if any individuals or their family members have ever been victims of a similar crime, have been arrested for a similar charge, or have ever worked for a law enforcement agency. Although they seemed to become very intimate, Judge Zmuda explained to jurors that although he wishes to respect privacy, he is doing his job in asking these questions and needs to do so to uncover any potential bias for either party.

The judge continued and asked about the personal lives of individuals, regarding if they have kids, where they work, their family, if they are married, what amount of education they have, and their age. Although some individuals were hesitant to answer, Judge Zmuda promised to keep all responses about age between him and the court.

The judge did all of the asking of the questions for an hour and fifteen minutes, but after that, the prosecutor began to ask questions of the jurors. Directed towards the entire group of potential jurors, the prosecutor informed them of the defendant's rights just to make sure that jurors know they cannot hold anything against a defendant using his rights (such as the right to remain silent, right to have a lawyer, etc.). The prosecutor also explained to all prospective jurors that they must make their decision solely based on the evidence presented in court without speculation, and asked jurors to disclose if they felt they would be unable to do so.

After this, the prosecutor asked individual questions directed towards specific jurors based on their previous answers to questions Judge Zmuda asked. For example, a potential juror who worked in finances was asked about how he made banking decisions, in order to make sure that how he makes banking decisions would not affect his impartiality to make a decision during deliberation. After the prosecutor finished, the defense lawyer asked questions they felt were necessary to uncover any more potential biases about jurors and to make sure that they understood the concept of "a defendant is innocent until proven guilty."

One by one, throughout the entire jury selection process, jurors were excused based on answers to questions that may have affected a juror's ability to be impartial. Finally, after about four hours of voir dire, a jury was finally selected, and all jurors not selected were excused.

There are numerous rules by which jurors must abide. Jurors cannot:
-talk to other jurors until deliberation
-talk to others about the trial or parties involved in the trial until after a verdict is reached
-learn anything about the case through any means
-talk to anyone involved in the case
-tell anyone that they are on a jury
-have preconceived ideas about a defendant until deliberation
-speculate answers to questions that received an objection from the judge
Although these rules are very restrictive, I agree that they are necessary in order to prevent any bias from the jury in fairness to both the prosecution and to the defense.

Finally, opening statements begin. The prosecution goes first and makes the first opening statement. In fact, the prosecution always goes first because they have the burden of proof. The defense makes an opening statement. Opening statements serve to explain to the jurors what is going on, to focus the jury and remind individuals of their roles, and to give an overview of what each side will do throughout the trial.

After opening statements, the prosecution begins to call witnesses to testify in attempting to prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

I learned today that the job of a juror is extremely important, and that when individuals are summoned for jury duty, courts ask them to donate a lot of time and energy. I found out that the voir dire process is very important in order to find jurors who will be able to do their job of sifting through the evidence and deciding a defendant's guilt without their own personal bias interfering in the decision making process. I think that the concept that the jurors are completely impartial is extremely important, and all parties were careful to make sure jurors knew that a defendant is innocent until the state of Ohio proves his or her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the state has the burden of proof. This is such an important process because everything needs to go properly to make sure that each aspect of the trial is fair.

One part of today that I didn't quite understand was why it mattered exactly where each juror sat in the juror box. The bailiff didn't seem to assign seats with any pattern or reason, and I will ask why the seating arrangement of the jurors mattered so much.