Jury Experience

It happened.  After all of 38 years working, voting, and living in Dane County, Dane County wanted me as a juror.  On January 31, 2018 Carlo Esqueda, Clerk of Circuit Court, sent a letter summoning me as a juror to Dane County Courthouse, Room L1000 - Lower Level, 215 Hamilton Street, Madison on March 5, 2018 at 8:15 am. I was designated as Juror ID Number: 1440, Pool ID Number: GR09, and Pool Member Number: 207.   Further Juror ID Number: 1440 was required to call a telephone number on March 1, 2018 to determine if Carlo still needed Juror ID Number: 1440.

Dane County also summoned my younger daughter, Amy, as a juror, at the same time they wanted me.  She voted on and off in Dane County since graduating from Madison Memorial High School.  She now lived in Milwaukee.  I was puzzled as to how the Dane County computers found her when she had voted less than 10 times in Dane County while I had completed my Dane County civic duty a number of times over 38 years and they failed to find me until this year.  My wife forwarded Amy's summons to her through the mail.  She called a number printed on a special pink insert with the jury summons containing more detailed information.  She was dismissed by someone over the telephone because she now lived too far away from Dane County. 

I had some experience with juries when I lived in a suburb of Chicago because I was part of a Cook County jury in 1979 .  The Cook County Courthouse where I was summoned was a drab building and a large percentage of the building consisted of the Cook County Jail.  However, it had some space for jury trials.  I was picked to serve on a murder jury trial.

The jury trial was about a guy who lived with this woman --we never knew if they were married or not.  One night the guy decided he no longer wanted to live with the woman.  One night they were sleeping in the same bed.  While she was asleep he got out of bed and walked over to a nightstand.  On the nightstand he had a knife.  He took the knife, stabbed her multiple times, killing her.  He then decided he needed to do something with the body so he could get some sleep.  He loaded her body into her car, drove over to a forest preserve, and threw her body into a dumpster.  He then drove back to his/her apartment and went to bed.

The next day a forest reserve employee found the body and called the cops.   The guy was arrested seemingly after he had a good night's sleep.

The question of whether he killed the woman was never in doubt.  What our jury had to decide was, "Was the guy's action premeditated?"   If the actions were premeditated then he would receive a longer jail sentence.

The trial lasted for three days.  Fortunately the jurors could go home after each day of testimony rather than being sequestered in some dingy Cook County hotel.  The defense argued the guy killed the woman because he had a rage of passion. The Cook County attorney argued the guy planned the stabbing all along.

Finally, on the third day the jurors were allowed to meet and determine the guy's fate.  After three hours we determined the killing was premeditated because he had to walk across the room to fetch the knife.  If it were a crime of passion, he should have used a different means of killing her, such as suffocation. Our jury was very analytical as far as the subject of premeditated murder.

Our jury foreman gave the result to the judge.  The judge read the decision to everyone in the courtroom.  After the judge read the judgement, the guy was whisked out of the courtroom showing no emotion over the guilty verdict.  The judge then thanked everyone for their time and attention.  We were then dismissed.

That was my first and last time as a juror until the letter from Carlo. My Dane County experience was much different than my Cook County experience.

I called the number on the jury summons on March 1st.  The recorded information said they needed all jurors in GR09.  You should call back on Sunday, March 4th and find out if they changed their mind.  I called the number on Sunday and nothing changed from Friday.  Dane County needed everybody in group GR09 on Monday, March 5th at 8:15 am.

I took a city bus downtown on March 5th.  I was a little out of practice using a bus and missed an earlier bus.  The earlier bus drove down the street blissfully unaware of me as I watched four houses from the bus  stop yelling to flag down the bus.  I made sure I was picked up by the next bus 30 minutes later and I arrived downtown at 8:08 am. I then walked to the Dane County Courthouse building.

As I walked to the courthouse, I was joined by a large crowd of people also walking to the courthouse.  The number of people walking to the courthouse was analogous to the number of people walking to the Kohl Center for a Badger basketball game.

All of these people had to pass through security before entering the building.  The line to get through security was out the door and almost into the street. 

The Dane County Courthouse's  security setup was similar to an airport's security setup.  The security setup was manned by four people, two men and two women. The women commanded the X-Ray machines.  One man stood in back of the X-Ray door portal. The last guy watched and approved the building employees as they proceeded through security. For the non-employees, your belongings needed to pass through a belt conveyor X-Ray machine and your body had to pass through a door X-Ray machine.   The employee entrance security procedure was simply showing an ID to the guy overseeing the employee entrance, giving this security guy a smile, and passing through without passing through any
X-Ray machines.    

As we walked up to the security area, the woman sitting on a chair watching the X-Ray doorway rattled off instructions.  "All of your possessions go into the gray boxes.  All coins, jewelry must be placed in the containers.  Anything metal!  That includes your belts.  Once you put these items into the bins, place the bins on the belt to the X-Ray machine.  You must then pass through the X-Ray doorway."

That was quite a mouthful of instructions to say in one breath.  She added, "Thank you."

All of this was said by a person who had repeated these instructions innumerable times before.  She was very bored and did not look particularly happy.

The woman in front of me also placed her belongings in the gray box and stepped through the X-Ray door portal.   She then retrieved her belongings after the X-Ray door portal offered no comment.

As I approached the security area, I placed all of my personal belongings, coins, watch, backpack and belt, on the X-Ray machine belt.  The X-Ray machine passed the material through and was satisfied.

Next I stepped through the X-Ray door portal and as I passed through, bells and whistles went off.

"What did you do to my machine!", exclaimed the woman overseeing the X-Ray door portal. I hoped she was jesting but I was not sure.

"Nothing. I had my knee replaced in November", I offered. "I have metal in my  left knee and left foot."

"You have what!", she yelled.

I repeated the information about my left knee and foot.

"Oh, you are one of them."

She looked at me and looked at the guy standing behind the X-Ray portal and ordered loudly, "Wand him!"

The portal guy then took over.  "Sir, please walk through the door.  Place your hands above your head, face me, and take a wide stance with your legs."

I walked through the X-Ray door holding my pants up with my right hand.  I hoped the pants without the belt would stay up when I had to raise my hands above my head.  I also wondered what would happen if the wand would start beeping.  Would I be disqualified from jury duty or thrown in jail?

Much to my relief, the wand did not beep as the X-Ray portal guy completed his wanding task by starting at the top of my body and gradually working his way to my feet.  After the wand examination, the X-Ray portal wand guy waved me to the X-Ray belt machine.  I then retrieved my belt and all of my belongings.  After threading the belt through the belt loops of my pants, I then proceeded to the elevator for the next step in the adventure glad that my pants remained up while I was wanded (spell check says wanded is not a word).

We then had to pass through yet another line so that our names could be checked off by one of two women seated at a table ensuring we had met all of the obligations contained in Carlo's letter.  Each woman had a list of names and checked the name of the person off the list after the proper ID was furnished.  The list had some problems because the guy two ahead of me was not on the list.  The two women talked amongst themselves and argued a little while whispering about how this was not possible. "If he received a letter he should be on our list.  Why isn't he on our list?  We need to look at his letter.  Maybe he has the wrong date!  Maybe he has the wrong county!  The problem of him not being our list,  can't be with our list!"  They finally decided to deal with him separately and then told him to step aside.

After getting past the list checking women, I was told to take a seat in this very large room.  The room apparently had seating for around 200 to 250 people. The room's seating capacity was inadequate for the GR09 people because it was standing room only.  I fortunately found a seat before there no seats to be had and sat in a section of people working hard on their smart phones.

Our first five minutes was a welcome from a guy who told everyone how great a bunch of citizens we were for coming, this day would be hopefully an enjoyable experience, and supplied the location of the vending machines and bathrooms. He could have been Carlo but he never stated his name nor did he wear a name badge.

The second speaker was the lady in charge of coordinating the whole day.  She was honest. She told us people staying until noon would receive a pittance plus gas mileage as pay for their Dane County experience.  The people staying into the afternoon would receive a slighter increase to the pittance and gas mileage.  She told us to view it as a public service and not a money making experience.  She then smiled and asked for  questions.  She was pleasantly surprised when no one had a question so we could move on to viewing a video telling us how to be jurors.

We then viewed this 15 minute video which was completed in 2017 and "professionally done" for all jurors summoned for jury duty in any part of Wisconsin.  Patience Rogensack, Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, led off the video.  I thought this was very strange because the Wisconsin Supreme Court does not hear jury trials.  Nonetheless she started the video followed by a number of trial judges.  Did you know all jurors must have a unanimous verdict in a felony trial and only a 5/6 agreement in a civil trial?  The video was completed by 9:15.

We were then instructed to sit and wait for our juror number to be called by anyone of the Dane County sheriff deputy (also known as the bailiff) for the 27 trial judges.  If we were called we were to meet the bailiff at the elevator and be escorted to the courtroom where we would meet the judge and the lawyers.

As the woman next to me continued to play Candy Crush on her smart phone, we waited to be called.  The woman in charge made two calls for 30 jurors in the first fifteen minutes and the numbers called were very much below Pool Member Number: 207.    Then there was no activity for the next 30 minutes.

At 10:15 the woman in charge returned.  She said rather sheepishly, "I guess I did not review any of the court dockets last Friday.  If I had then I could have called a lot of you off and you would have avoided the trip here.  The courts really did not have a lot going on this week.  Sorry about that.  You are all free to go.  You will get your $15 check plus mileage in 6 weeks.  You are all off the juror list for 4 years.  Thanks for your time and have a good day."

I left the Dane County Courthouse, grabbed a city bus, and was home before noon.

Being a juror was a snap and I can't wait until Carlo or his successor sends me another letter for jury duty 38 years from now.  If I unfortunately  receive a summons  in four years perhaps it will coincide with a scheduled colonoscopy and then I will need to decide what is the bigger pain in the derriere.