My Days in Court

Last week I was on jury duty. Going in I felt almost honored to be asked to participate in our American system of justice this way. It is an important responsibility. I was happy that after the questioning by the judge and attorneys I was in the group chosen to sit on the jury of a criminal trial. All of us listened to testimony and our instructions, and when it was our time to go into the jury room, we discussed the counts brought up against the defendant and came to a decision.

We gave our judgment, and after the courtroom cleared and we gathered our belongings, the judge interviewed us and told us many things about the defendant that had been withheld from us before and during the trial. The defendant had been on parole, and his attack on his ex-girlfriend had put him back into prison to serve the remainder of that earlier sexual misconduct sentence. We jury members gave a collective deep sigh of disappointment because we had been way too generous in our judgment on his attack of last summer. He had invited his ex-girlfriend for dinner and a movie at his place while their 8-month daughter slept in the back bedroom. He had had custody of the child several days prior. He took his ex by force into a bedroom in his mobile home and attempted to rape her. However, he stopped the attack and let her go.

I'm copying parts of a letter I wrote to the judge the evening after we gave our decision:

Dear Judge,

As you might imagine, most of us jury members for the trial of MP are heartsick over the verdict we returned today in light of what we learned in our interview with you after the trial. I can only imagine MP is happily flabbergasted while RC is totally stupefied. My heart goes out to her.

It seems our confusion came from several sources.

1. We didn’t understand the idea of abandonment under Minnesota law. We believed that when MP stopped the attack, we had to consider that as a conscious choice which would seemingly “erase” the initiation of the attack. Since we couldn’t read his motivation, we looked at the idea of “good faith” too broadly. ANY reason for his letting RC go was a positive for us. We discussed the idea of reasonable doubt pertaining to this point, and to others.
2. We separated reasons for the attack, coming to agree that after RC refused sex, MP became enraged, thus making the attack no longer sexual in nature. Looking back, we were SOOOO wrong. We should have realized it was sexual in nature because he was still attempting penetration. That is a question we should have asked of you.
3. RC had a history with MP, and freely admitted his ___ “only brushed” against her vaginal area. It seemed very possible she didn’t want to bring charges against this former lover and the father of one of her children. She didn’t call 911 until talking with her mother. RC mentioned her mother, friends, and friends’ mothers as having advised her to bring charges against MP. RC admitted she and MP had a quarrelsome relationship; perhaps she felt things would blow over once she distanced herself from him because they had in the past, but was then pressured by others to press charges. When one of the first calls she made was to tell MP to bring the baby to their friends’ house so she could pick her up, it seemed she was confident that he would do what she told him. So while she was terribly threatened during the attack, once he stopped and she was away, she seemed to be handling things well enough.
4. During her testimony, RC could have used stronger words and been more certain of herself in order to be more convincing. It must have been confusing at first to tell her story multiple times, depending on the manner of the questioning by various people. But after 7 months, it seems she should have calmed down enough to be more certain of what happened. She was still qualifying, as if she didn’t really want to get MP in a lot of trouble.
5. There were no pictures of physical damages to RC, not even to the lower leg MP had zipped to the mattress handle. Was it lucky for MP that she didn’t bruise much?
6. I could to on and on, but I won’t. This is already too long for me to hope you might read the whole letter!

These concerns only scratch the surface. As I said, I know most of us are heartsick. It seems so unfair that we didn’t know MP’s history. That could have been the reason his attorney didn’t put up a defense. But we thought of a number of other, less nefarious reasons as well. We simply did not know.

This was one of the hardest situations in which I have ever been involved. I’m so sorry we didn’t return a more JUST verdict. I hated not having background and certain knowledge. We were too gullible and soft in giving MP the benefit of the doubt. We didn’t interpret our instructions well. We all agreed we wanted to rule more strongly against him, but erred in thinking the evidence wasn’t strong enough for us to do so. I am thankful, though, that MP is identified for what he is and that he will serve more prison time. Please consider giving him the maximum sentence for the predatory kidnapping charge.

Thank you for the way you conduct your court. It must be a very hard thing to be a judge. I appreciate the way you handled us jurors.

PS - - . . . and after a couple of hours letting this letter “cure,” I’m still feeling rather shabby for the weak verdict we returned. The bad guy sort of won.
(End of letter to judge)

We didn't even know MP's age until after the trial. He is 27 or 28; RC is 21. Even that might have given us a clue he had a history, rather than leave us to think perhaps these were simply 2 relatively decent people having a temptestuous relationship. MP's sexual misconducts of the past are on his record still, of course. And the one good thing we did was add predatory kidnapping to his wrap sheet so the people who live in his neighborhood have a better idea of how dangerous he can be.

Serving on a jury is indeed a deep responsibility. I'm thankful to have gone through the experience. Until today, my thought has been that I hope never to have to serve again. But I'm coming to see that I learned so much from this that I would be a much better juror if I am ever called in the future.

I'm so thankful for my testimony of the gospel. I know our judgment here is imperfect-- way imperfect. But we did the best we could with what we were shown and instructed during the trial. We did what was asked of us, and MP will serve more time and carry an additional label through his life. I know MP will finally be judged by the Lord in His full knowledge, mercy, and justice. We judged MP too softly, but his final judgment will be ultimately fair. This is my comfort.