[blindlaw] Grand jury service

[Bill Spiry]

Elizabeth 
Your explanation of balancing the tension between the interests of the
representing attorneies and their clients vs. the interests and dignity of
potential jurors with disabilities is concise and well done.  

Thanks.
Bil

Bill spiry
Juris Doctor candidate 2012
University of Oregon School of Law

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Elizabeth Rene
Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2010 3:53 PM
To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
Subject: [blindlaw] Grand jury service

Joe, I served as an assistant prosecuting attorney, at trial and on appeal,
for nine years.  Here is my perspective.

 if you are summoned to serve on a grand jury, you will be asked to
determine whether someone should be indicted for a felony offense.  The
question will be whether there exists enough evidence to bring that person
to trial on the charges proposed by the prosecution.

Like Mike, I'm from Washington, and we don't use grand juries here.  So I
don't know, or remember, whether there will be a voire dire examination to
seat you on the grand jury panel.

I doubt, though, that your blindness will be a factor, since your job would
be to assess the sufficiency of the evidence needed to support a charge,
rather than to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused.  The
evidence would probably be presented in a different way than at trial, and
different standards of proof would apply.

If the grand jury voted to indict, the evidence could be further developed
for presentation at trial.

So even the kinds of evidence that might make some less informed lawyers
nervous about having a blind juror seated for trial--traffic accident
reconstruction evidence, say, or the nonverbal cues as to a witness's
credibility that never make it into the record, might not even be put before
a grand jury.

Either way, the Constitutional right of the accused person to be  tried by a
jury of his or her peers, and the duty of the prosecution to bear its burden
of proof, would be paramount to the court.  Lawyers have a duty to present
their evidence in ways that allow each juror to understand it and to weigh
its significance.  But, in selecting a jury panel, they also get to assure
themselves that each juror will have the capacity to receive the evidence,
to remember it, and to evaluate it in deciding the issues in question.

We blind citizens have a duty to serve on a jury if called to do so, but we
don't have an enforceable right to be there.  Nobody does.

So, as obnoxious and demeaning as it is to be the subject of questions about
our abilities to serve as jurors, I think it's in our best interest as blind
citizens to present ourselves in court in ways that effectively communicate
our competence, and to not allow under our skin questions and conduct from
lawyers whose jobs require them to defend interests conflicting with our
own.

On the other hand, though, if I am ever accused of a crime, and go to trial,
I hope that my lawyer will demand, as a matter of my Constitutional right to
a jury of my peers, that the panel seated to decide my guilt or innocence
include some blind people.

Elizabeth









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