Now I’ve seen a trial from the other side of the courtroom.

I’m a bit more than four months into my fifty ninth year of life. In all these years, I’ve always been registered to vote, so I’ve always been called for jury duty. However, I never was picked to serve until today.

Our case wasn’t a matter of high drama. No, it was a traffic case in which the accused was running a red light. (If you aren’t familiar with the Texas legal system, believe me, in Texas we are really big on juries.)

The accused was African American. The only witness against him was a non-minority police officer. The panel was primarily Anglo, which is unusual in and of itself, considering that Anglos are in a minority in Houston. (It was a City of Houston Municipal Courts case.) My lawyer instincts told me to expect a Batson challenge. We didn’t have one, since the defendant was pro-se.

The jury ultimately selected consisted of four Anglo males and two Anglo females. I’d guess that the average age of the jury was in the low fifties. As far as I could tell, everyone one of us was a college graduate and held (or held before retirement)  a professional or managerial job. If I ever saw a pro-prosecution jury on its face, our jury panel was it.

The trial in toto lasted less than an hour. When the door to the jury room closed, I was curious as to how the jury dynamics would work. I had read a good deal about such things, but now I was going to get a up close and personal look at how one jury operated.

I was fascinated by how the process unfolded inside the jury room for several reasons:

1. No one looked at his or her watch the entire time that we were deliberating, nor showed any interest in the passage of time.
2. Absolutely no overt or covert mention was made concerning the accused’s race.
3. All the jurors had a good grasp of how the burden of proof worked in favor of the defendant and that if there was a reasonable doubt, the benefit accrued to the defendant.
4. What I found the most interesting aspect of my jury service was that a number of the jurors analyzed the evidence just as Henry Fonda’s character did in “Twelve Angry Men.” With no prompting from me, they reached the same conclusions based upon the same reasoning that I had gone through. It took very little time for us to reach a unanimous decision.

I left my experience with a smile on my face. Despite all the fears of lawyers and all the horror stories that one reads about in cases, all six of us approached the case with a serious, high mindedness that lawyers always hope that jurors use, but isn’t always there. It was very reassuring to see that six people dragged away from home and work for the princely sum of $6.00 approached their task properly and seriously. My experience today reinforced my faith in the jury system.