What jury duty taught me about impartiality and innocence

Jury service is often labeled a nuisance unless it comes with TV fame and a big check. In reality, juries are a constitutional right and responsibility that must be fulfilled with the utmost respect and care.

You wouldn’t know it from the crazy jury selection drama that plagued former President Donald Trump’s trial in New York this week, but upholding the integrity of the American justice system is still important and possible. You just won’t find good examples of it in politicized trials in New York City or Washington, DC

I learned this firsthand when I served as forewoman for a minor criminal trial in my county last fall.

Jury selection started bright and early on a crisp Monday morning. I giggled to myself as the courthouse employee standing at the front door thanked me and 200 of my newest friends for responding to a summons that, if not fulfilled, threatened fines and jail time.

As annoying as it was to be herded like cattle by security into a room for a mandatory event that would likely disrupt my week, I wasn’t upset about being drafted. I wanted to be on a jury because I knew I had what it took to be objective.

Impartiality is a hallmark of the jury process, as set forth in the Sixth Amendment and reaffirmed by the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment. A jury that cannot remain impartial runs the risk of being dismissed. Likewise, a jury that cannot uphold a presumption of innocence, as guaranteed by the due process rights set forth in the Fifth Amendment, violates its duty and undermines the quest for justice.

The failure to uphold impartiality and innocence unless or until guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt renders jurors not only useless in what should be a free and fair trial, but also in direct violation of their constitutional duty.

If the Trump trials have taught us anything, it is that Americans whose information flows are poisoned by the corporate media and apps linked to communist China are largely incapable of impartiality and a presumption of innocence.

I was surprised by the number of potential jurors who were in the pool with me and admitted to the prosecution and defense that for various reasons they could not be impartial or presume innocence in a sex crime case. Some knew or were acquainted with the suspect. Others raised their hands and said they had bad personal experiences with sexual violence or that they tended to “believe all women.”

However, along with a few others, I reassured the court that we were able to make an impartial assessment based on the evidence. I was in what the court called the selection’s “splash zone,” which meant that while I wasn’t necessarily a shoo-in for the box, I could make the cut if the potential jurors before me were dismissed.

And sure enough, I was chosen as juror number six out of six. With me, a female journalist, in the box were two female employees from a public school, a male civil lawyer, a male IT professional and a male employee from an energy company.

The case

Most juries in our province, the juror noted during one of our breaks, do not end up with an even number of men and women, probably because women are more often excused from serving as breadwinners for children under the age of twelve who need help. sufficient supervision.

However, because this case focused on an alleged sexual offense and two counts of indecent assault against a woman, the lead prosecutor likely argued for more women in jail than normal.

This particular criminal case was the first of its kind to be conducted in my province. The judge informed us that it was also one of the first times that this alleged behavior had come before the court since the law criminalizing it came into effect in 2019.

Texas Penal Code Section 22.012 defines “indecent assault” as:

A person commits an offense if, without the consent of the other person and with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of a person, the person: (1) touches the anus, the breast or any part of the genitals of touching another person; (2) touches another person with the anus, breast, or any part of a person’s genitals; (3) exposes or attempts to expose another person’s genitals, pubic area, anus, buttocks, or female areola; or (4) causes another person to come into contact with a person’s blood, seminal fluid, vaginal fluid, saliva, urine, or feces.

The alleged crime is often classified as a Class A misdemeanor. The state legislature amended the law in 2023 to elevate the crime to a state jail felony if the suspect had previously been convicted of this crime or a similar one, or was a health care provider or mental health provider who provided the act allegedly committed while on duty.

In this particular case, a personal trainer was accused of touching his client, a female police officer who was off-duty at the time of the alleged crime, in the breast and genitals with the intention of gratifying himself. The pair maintained a friendly but flirty training relationship, which consisted of text messages and suggestions for meeting places outside the gym, until she claimed he attacked her and then tried to kiss her.

She waited a few days before firing him for not training her via text message, and then waited a little longer to report the alleged event to her supervisor at work.

The defendant did not come across to the jury as the most sincere man in the world. He didn’t even take the stand. But the selected jurors, including myself, promised the defense during the strike that the trainer’s silence would not affect our ability to remain impartial on the case.

Justice is served (sometimes)

After a day of selection and introduction and another day and a half of arguments and evidence presentation, we were sent away to deliberate. As presiding juror, my job was to keep us on track and ensure discussions focused on evidence and not feelings.

Intent is difficult to prove because jurors cannot possibly know what the suspect was thinking at the time of the alleged incident. “Intent to arouse” is an even higher, more specific burden of proof, because it requires proof that the reported inappropriate touching was done for a very specific purpose.

Even with video evidence that the prosecution suggested showed the first crime, with the trainer touching her breasts when he saw her doing weighted squats, there was no physical indication on his body or face that the suspect showed the intent required to to convict him under this law.

The real evidence came when the alleged victim revealed during interrogation that she had been sexually abused as a child. As we listened to her testimony about the treatment she received from her mother’s boyfriend, we noticed that this was a reflection of what she accused the trainer of doing to her.

Less than an hour into deliberations, five of the six jurors, including myself, had concluded that the defendant was not guilty on both counts. After another hour of review and debate, the sixth juror, who admitted to us that his feelings about his wife’s history of sexual assault affected his ability to be objective, agreed that the evidence did not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt .

As forewoman, I signed the verdict and handed it to the judge, who read it aloud in the courtroom.

Contrary to what some may think, being a juror does not require you to make a moral judgment about a person, only a legal one. The defendant could be the least upstanding citizen in the province, but if his alleged actions do not meet all the elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, he is not guilty.

My jury did what we could within the scope of the very specific law and evidence presented to us.

I have no doubt that if the case I deliberated on were tried in a big, blue city like New York or DC, it would likely have resulted in a guilty verdict simply because of the pervasive #MeToo movement and the tainted jury pool . In my conservative city, however, the alleged assault of a female off-duty police officer by a male personal trainer was not political and, as far as I knew, attracted no media attention.

Thanks to impartiality and the presumption of innocence unless or until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, a legally innocent man in a Texas town is walking free.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University, where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.