Selected
We arrive at 8:30 and the selection process begins. We spend a lot of time waiting, but are finally called into Judge Dianne Devasto's court room for the voir dire(sp?) questioning of the panel. As the lawyers asked questions of us that might indicate particular biases on our part, quite a few people raised their hands. Lots of people had relatives or close friends (or personal experience) with criminal charges placed against them. We were dismissed for lunch. After lunch we had to wait a while as they asked some of the potential jurors who had raised their hands some additional questions in private. Then we were all taken back into the court room. I was sitting in seat 33, which means that for me to get selected, 21 people ahead of me had to be eliminated by one lawyer or the other. In the end, juror 39 was the last juror selected. We did not get any direct information about the case, but through the process we were able to deduce the basic gist of what the defendant was being accused of. He was being accused of displaying a knife to a woman and threatening to kill her. He was present at this point, and during the process was just scanning the crowd and listening to the questions. He never seemed to display any particular emotion aside from moderate interest in how things were being done. As soon as I saw him, though, I thought "He did it." I don't know why, but he just looked like the type of person capable of threatening someone and holding a knife while doing so. When we were finally chosen, we were given parking passes, some instruction not to watch the news or read papers or talk about the case, and instructed to return Monday at 11:00 AM. As I thought about it that day, and on the weekend, I tried to remove any assumptions I made about the defendant's guilt until I actually heard something about the case.