A Baby Carriage of Justice

[baby tuckoo]

Thanks, Anthy, for your attentive questions. My responses follow, though I hope no one is waiting for a satisfying result to this story. In a way, my effort here is an attempt to distribute the frustration.


I think that's why a lot of things get written.

(For Anthy's questions, see previous page. I'm too lazy to drag them here. You should read her post anyway. Don't be lazy yourself. Don't be an "only the most recent page is good enough for me" kind of person, thus losing marvelous comments at the end of the previous page. Always go to the second-to-last page. Leave the keyboard for an hour before deciding to submit. Check your spelling by yourself. Don't put that red t-shirt in with your underwear, unless you want pink underwear. Keep the dog out of the pool. Don't use your car for storage room you lack elsewhere. And wipe that look off your face. Yes, that look.)


1. Both before we were selected for the jury and after, the jurors and alternates waited in the hall outside the courtroom in the very same space as witnesses and observers. Both of these groups included family members, old and young, and the two seemingly independent male adults who attended each day and sat alone also in the wide hall, which was lined on both sides with firm plastic chairs.

My fellow jurors were in large part on time. We started at 9 am, had a brief break at 10:30, a lunch break from 12-1:30, another brief break at 3, and (unless a witness was brief or the next wasn't available until the next day) adjourned at 4:30. We would sit or stand in the hall together at each of these start times, waiting to be summoned by the Bailiff. We jurors wore badges, and we all certainly recognized each other, but no seating distinctions were imposed.

All the witnesses described in the narrative sat in the same area we did, and, because of various motions or discussions, the start times often were delayed, so all had to just sit and wait. I tried to sit well down the hall, near the door of another Department (that's what they call each courtroom) and among people from a different trial or alone. For reasons given earlier, this became difficult when I became Juror #1, a person who logistically should enter first.

When our summons appeared imminent, I would move to the entry, still reading and, if a lone seat was not available, I would simply stand while reading. Several of my fellow jurors, however, found it impossible not to chat loudly, personally, and broadly with whoever sat near them. This had started during our selection process of three days. It continued throughout the trial, and I became uncomfortable when I saw Jurors #7 and #10 sitting at the same bank of seats with peripherals of the Tucker family, then later with actual witnesses. No, I didn't hear specific talk about the case. #7 and #10 were both fiftyish women with great social needs and small regard for propriety or for boundaries, not just in the hall but in the deliberation room, as I was to see.


When sessions ended, especially for lunch or at the end of the day, I was the last to exit and I walked to the stairs at the opposite end of the hall. At most, one other juror did the same, and we descended in silence, except for perhaps "see you tomorrow."


But when I passed the elevators, it was clear that a number of the seated twelve were about to get on a car with Patrice (Johnson) family members, and that some of them were smiling and collegial. These two jurors were the same ones that, when Foreman, I gently asked to curtail stories about their personal lives or something that once happened to their ex brother-in-law, a good man, really, who once had to explain to a social worker exactly how his daughter had sustained the big bruise on her face even though she'd simply been kicked in a soccer match, but a teacher saw it and the girl didn't explain it very well so the teacher (a "mandatory reporter", as are we all) passed it along so that her sister (who wasn't yet divorced but had custody) had to answer questions in a phone call she didn't expect and said it wasn't unreasonable to think that her father (her not yet ex) had hit her or at least hadn't supervised her so that she got hurt some way because he drank, you know, not bad but sometimes he just wanted to stand around with his friends outside, and he'd had some arrests earlier, but we all have people in our family like that, right, you know.

This previous might be a question, but it wasn't one the jury should consider. I'll describe her response later. In short, I was concerned that these two sitting, chatting, and riding elevators with particulars in the case. In the best of worlds, jurors would be segregated by more than just a badge and their own good sense, but that was not true at this courthouse.


2. Yes, this struck me the same way. It actually matters quite a bit when Ahmaad's version gets told. In the video interview, he described the sleeping arrangements. This was a sparsely furnished two bed/two bath apartment. We saw plenty of pictures taken by CSI soon after the incident. The master bedroom had a double box spring and mattress for Patrice and Ahmaad (when he was there), a crib for Amaya (1 1/2 year old), and a bathroom whose overhead light was the only light for the bedroom. That's right, there was no other light in the master bedroom; it was essentially a sleeping room.

The twins pretty much lived in their car seats. They were preemies (26 week) and couldn't yet roll over or control their heads or hold a bottle. According to both parents, they weren't strapped in unless in the car, and that was the case on Dec. 3.

This is important: The double bed had its head against the wall diagonal left from the door to the room. The bathroom was to the immediate right of the entry, the crib was to the immediate left. There was no nightstand by the bed. There was a small dresser on the wall diagonal right and several piles of baby stuff on the floor around the room.

(Please note that photos of the kitchen and bathroom and refrigerator show a fairly orderly place given that four children and an indigent father lived there.)


The car seats that night (and every night) were placed on the floor next to the bed and between the bed and crib. According to both P and A, the seats were right next to each other, parallel and close to the wall and perpendicular to the bed so that Patrice could wake at night and reach to comfort/feed them both without rising. Again, the only light in the room was the glow from the bathroom. A photo taken down the hall from the "dining room" (where Ahmaad was perking and writing) revealed this well.


To help you visualize: upon entering the bedroom through the hall door, the crib with Amaya was to the immediate left, the bed was about 6 feet in and the two car seats were to the diagonal left, feet against the head of the bed. Amaya had a car seat in the room too, but she slept in the crib. Yes, the twins (only two months out of the PICU at Alta Bates, about the same amount of time Ahmaad was off probabtion) spent most of their lives in the car seats. That amounts to virtually all of Taniyah's life.


3. Yes, Janiyah survived. I never saw a baby with any of the family at the trial, but I strove not to look. We were never told of the custodial fate of any of the children after the incident. The twins had gone for a "well baby check" just a week prior to the incident and they were in very good shape. Janiyah's wounds were not substantial. She might well be living with her mother, but I don't know that.


Oh, yes, one last thing. At the end of her testimony, D.A. Slivka asked Patrice, "What is your current relationship with the Defendant?"



She replied, "I love him."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

These two jurors were the same ones that, when Foreman, I gently asked to curtail stories about their personal lives or something that once happened to their ex brother-in-law, a good man, really, who once had to explain to a social worker exactly how his daughter had sustained the big bruise on her face even though she'd simply been kicked in a soccer match, but a teacher saw it and the girl didn't explain it very well so the teacher (a "mandatory reporter", as are we all) passed it along so that her sister (who wasn't yet divorced but had custody) had to answer questions in a phone call she didn't expect and said it wasn't unreasonable to think that her father had hit her or at least hadn't supervised her so that she got hurt some way because he drank, you know, not bad but sometimes he just wanted to stand around with his friends outside, and he'd had some arrests earlier, but we all have people in our family like that, right, you know.

This may be the most effective use of a run-on sentence that I have ever seen. Bravo, baby t.

Needless to say, I find the interaction between the jurors and the family/witnesses appalling. Among many other things. Consider the frustration shared. And I know that we are still in the early innings.

[The One Ring]

b.t., was the bailiff aware that jurors were hobnobbing with witnesses?

Jn

[baby tuckoo]

b.t., was the bailiff aware that jurors were hobnobbing with witnesses?

Jn

Apparently, yes, as you will see.

[Crucifer]

What!? Jurors chatting amiably with witnesses!? They should be locked up themselves! I've never, in all my 18 years and several months heard anything so scandalously WRONG!

[anthriel]

That amounts to virtually all of Taniyah's life.

This is an incredibly sad sentence.



Thank you for the detailed answers, your exalted babyness. I think I begin to understand the genesis of your frustration, just a bit better.

[solicitr]

Needless to say, I find the interaction between the jurors and the family/witnesses appalling

That is pretty shocking. In every circuit court I've ever appeared in, state or federal, jurors are escorted straight to the jury room, and witnesses to a separate witness room where they spend the day, aside from lunch and their actual testimony.

[JewelSong]

Needless to say, I find the interaction between the jurors and the family/witnesses appalling

That is pretty shocking. In every circuit court I've ever appeared in, state or federal, jurors are escorted straight to the jury room, and witnesses to a separate witness room where they spend the day, aside from lunch and their actual testimony.

I would think that this alone would merit a mistrial. I thought it was illegal!

[baby tuckoo]

Solicitr and Jewel, I was surprised also that we were not segregated by anything but our own judgement, even after testimony started.

One morning about four days into the trial, Judge Greta at 9 am called us in individually to ask (in front of Counsel and on the record) each of us directly if we had spoken about the case to any other juror or to any of the witnesses or audience. Apparently, we all said no, for we then resumed the trial to the end.


I will jump ahead a bit to wrap up this issue.


After concluding statements and the Judge's charge to us, we were sent to the Jury room, which is where we then reported each day. It was just down the hall from the courtroom, and we could often see the Counsels and various family members there throughout the day. I, as always, took the stairs at the far end of the hall.

Our first duty was to select a foreman, and they very quickly asked me to do it. I did not lobby for myself at all. At the end of the second day, I resigned the responsibility and suggested that the woman who was doing the main sniping and haranguing (Juror #7) do it, which ended any attempt to look at the evidence systematically. I used no profanity, nor did I raise my voice. We sent a note to the Judge. The new Foreman asked me to write the note because she claimed not to be able to spell very well.

The next morning, the Bailiff took us to the hall outside the courtroom rather than the jury room. Only 11 of us were there, and the three alternates (who had heard all the evidence at trial) had also been called in. Juror #7 never appeared.

Judge Greta again called us in one by one to be asked if we had spoken to anyone of the case. It took less than a minute in and out for each of us except Juror #10, who was the other chatty lady and another of the haranguers. For her, it took ten minutes. Then we were all called in.

The Judge said, "I have relieved Juror #7 of her position on this jury. She is liable to prosecution of (cited penal code section), as are all of you if you do not take my admonishment seriously. I will repeat it here."

And she did. Then she said, "I am introducing Alternate #1 to the jury and making him Juror #7. You must all go back to the jury room, select another Foreman, and begin deliberation from the beginning." No, I do not know the exact nature of #7's transgression or who detected it, but I think we can all make an accurate guess. (I do wonder how they told her; some of us arrived quite early that morning, and none had seen her. I wonder if they arrested and booked her?)

The new Juror #7 was a man about my age whose name also was Kelly. Which reminds me: On the first day of deliberation, most of my fellow jurors already knew each other by first names and used them freely. To at least five of them, this was clearly no different from any other social event, and more interesting than most. I'm sure they considered me to be the unpleasant guest at the party.

I continued to attempt persuasion and advocacy in a civil fashion when in the jury room, but from that time on I would not engage in even casual pleasantries with them outside. Unfortunately, none of it would matter.

[Crucifer]

It seems, bt, that this trial was one big long farce.

I would have cracked. I really would. I admire your strength.

[baby tuckoo]

Thank you, Crucifer.


I came closer to cracking than I'm describing here, as my mother and son (who were both visiting at deliberation time) would attest.


I've become friendly with a group of Trivia players from a prominent local law firm. On the Thursday night after I'd been chosen Foreman, I sat with them for a bit and asked, theoretically, if it was more than a misdemeanor for a Jury Foreman to kill a troublesome/clueless juror.

The leading partner in the firm said, "Not if I defend you. With no priors, I can get you home detention."

[Impenitent]

...

[superwizard]

At the end of the second day, I resigned the responsibility and suggested that the woman who was doing the main sniping and haranguing (Juror #7) do it, which ended any attempt to look at the evidence systematically.

I'm curious bt; why did you do that?

[baby tuckoo]

Superwizard, I'm sure there is a complicated, personality-based answer that reveals me to be unsuited for democratic leadership. I'll try to answer based on procedural conflicts, but I might not cling mightily to that pledge, and you might understand some of the personality issues in the course of the discussion.

While Foreman, I did three things that were considered "rude" or "wrong" by several (four or five) members, and these members would appeal to the group as a whole to reject my attempts to "moderate" the discussion in favor of my opinion.


I did these three things, intentionally:

• I sought to curtail meandering speculations on matters outside of knowledge based on evidence.
  
  I sought to limit stories of personal experience that drifted into irrelevance to the case.
  
  I sought, after fully hearing a juror describe his/her "confusion" about an issue in the case, to suggest a piece of evidence that might help relieve this confusion.

All this was done with complete courtesy and appropriate deference. The official "Juror Booklet" says that "the Foreman should guide the discussion," and that was my intent. But any attempt to focus the discussion on a specific area of the case (e.g. the chronology of events the night of the crime or the relevance of the character witnesses) was met with scolding resistance.

Jurors 7 and 10 adopted a battle cry: "Don't try to tell me what to think!" Which I never tried to do. Rather, I tried to show them how (not what) to think about a complicated issue by isolating aspects of it.

In short, you can't think or talk about everything at once. The cycle of confusion just perpetuates itself, and most of the jurors had declared themselves "confused" when we entered the jury room.

On the Friday I resigned, I had just suggested to confused Juror #5, who had spoken fully and had paused, that she consider specific testimony by the second pathologist. I was scolded again by #10 and became frustrated. I declared my resignation as Foreman and tossed my badge (forgetting that it was not a symbol of the position) across the table saying, "Then you be Foreman." My voice was not raised, I did not use vulgarity, I said nothing more. The badge stopped on the table a foot in front of her, as intended. (We were about four feet from each other.)

She began to cry and went into the bathroom. When she came out, she apologized (to everyone, not to me). She clearly wanted me to apologize also. I did not. Juror #7 asked to be Foreman, and it was granted without dissent. #7 asked me to write a note to the Judge, which I did. The next morning she was relieved of her duties in the manner described earlier.


My own profession, public high school teacher, is full of notorious cranks. They are tolerated to a remarkable degree. I am not one of them, nor do I strive for any leadership role in my profession. When I tell this jury story to my fellow teachers, they are surprised. Disputation often swirls in academe, but never with me at the center. In short, there is no evidence that I am a powermonger or an agitator. There is no evidence because I am not those things.


So how did this all happen?


Again, personality conflict is undeniably a factor. There are people who don't like to be taught or shown or even guided. They autonomically rebel at the whiff of guidance in the air. I reckon this to be a "family of origin" issue. I meet students like this, and I often connect with them successfully by demonstrating the joy of reason and learning. It is hard to survive in a business environment with this contrarian attitude. But lagoons of constant validation exist where there is no need to demonstrate progress in the great sea of commerce. Sorry.

I, personally, love to be taught and shown, and I thank any student who brings me evidence that I am wrong. No, they don't get extra credit. No one gets extra credit.

I also like to teach and show.

There are also people who are never cut short in their rambling, no matter what the situation, so they have no experience with situational discussions in a large group setting. To earn the right to ramble one should be pretty damned amusing some of the time, but that is not always the case. Some are never cut short because they have money or power or beauty, or because they hang out in a culture that simply doesn't do that. But there are times we must submit to processes that are larger than ourselves.

Here in the "Baby Carriage" thread of the "Lasto" forum of the "Hall of Fire" board, each member is free to turn away from any discussion at any time, and some people turn off the entire enterprise after appreciating it briefly. Our Mods have wrestled naked with the bifurcation issue. The discussion of "pertinent" and "appropriate" occasionally becomes pointed. Some who come here have never before been stifled on line and feel that no one has that right. In person, it is even more difficult to put the local freight train off to the side while an express comes through.

"You there, please stand quietly against the building while the motorcade of an important person roars down the street."

If "you" resent politics or class as a knee jerk, "you" will indeed resent this. If you have no interest in important meetings that must take place on time, you will resent this. If you have no sense of gravity, weight will never be relative.


Several of my fellow jurors (chosen, perhaps, by a prescient Defense Counsel) felt that "moderation" in its mildest sense was the only role of the Foreman. Juror #7 was a "Mediation Specialist" for the County of Sacramento. Her ecumenical impulses caused her to break the law and to encourage fractional behavior in the jury room. Society was ill-served by her inability to distinguish this duty from others in her life.


What they (my confused fellows who would not allow guidance by a Foreman nor rules from the Judge) clearly did not understand, and what lead to my resignation through frustration, was that stark advocacy and contention are not just allowed but common in the deliberation procedure. Of course, some will try to influence the conclusion of others. This may or may not be successful, and each person is fully entitled to resist, but the attempt to influence through discourse based on evidence is expected, and it is not the same thing as "rudeness" or "coarse manipulation," though both of those things happen in jury rooms all the time.


Advocacy and contention are not the opposite of civility if delivered in a civil manner.


So, wizard, I've probably addressed both the procedural and the personal issues here, though I didn't originally intend to. I hope you've gotten a flavor. It's not really easy to explain, which is why I go on and on, I suspect. Your question was simply, "Why did you resign?"


It was the right thing to do at the moment and also in retrospect. Nothing changed because of it. Two days of "guiding the discussion" had shown me enough. My voice as simply "Juror #1" was adequately heard.

[The One Ring]

But lagoons of constant validation exist where there is no need to demonstrate progress ...

Yes. And those who rely upon them make careers out of knowing where to find them.

Jn

[baby tuckoo]

I'd like to confirm that JnYusa has no power to bend my spoon. My spoon cannot be bent.

[Crucifer]

A psychologist would have had a field day in that jury room.
So would a sociologist.

[Primula Baggins]

This is all completely fascinating, bt. I don't have much to say, but like many others I'm right here reading.

[baby tuckoo]

Soon to come: The Medical Evidence

[superwizard]

Wow thanks bt! That really shed some light into the situation that you faced. How terribly frustrating!