Juror #5, alternate
Appearances
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
It came down to a raffle, more or less. Nine days of obsessive note-taking and eye-straining, eyes always dry and tired and redlined by the time we left, 87 hours in courthouses in total, and the judge pulled just four jury names and numbers out of a black cup. Juror five was called second.
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
Despite the fact that I had told my boyfriend before I even left that best case scenario for me, morally and ethically speaking, would be the alternate route, I felt immediately like an outsider, like I didn't belong.
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
I felt uncomfortable having my full name read in the courtroom, and I kept my eyes down as I walked from my chair on the very end of the jury box, passing by the remaining 14 folks who I had felt at the very least on the same team with over the course of the trial. At most, I had ideas of being jury foreman after being told that by three other people.
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
First, the HR coordinator at my work said he thought it was likely when I turned in my notice for jury duty in the first place. Then Juror 11 said she thought I would be while watching me respond to questions during voir dire. Finally, jokingly, Juror 4 would say something like, sounds like foreman talk.
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
The times I would try to help organize group decisions in the jury room, such as how much time we should take off for the upcoming MLK holiday weekend. We all decided just one day after everyone put anonymous votes in a cup I had placed by the coffee machine. We all wanted to get back sooner to the people and the dogs that we love. Now here it is Monday. It's MLK Day.
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
A president is being inaugurated. California is on fire, it's snowing in Florida, and one of the deputies told us that TikTok was briefly taken offline. Over breakfast, I ask, they would tell us if it was the apocalypse out there, right? A few hours later, and the same process I used to pull the weekend vote is essentially the same process that was used to pick alternates.
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
I'm an alternate and I'm escorted out of the courtroom with three other alternates down the hall about five doors away from the real jury room. We sit and wait for their deliberation. I try to read as two other alternates play a card game, but my mind races. What did I do wrong? Did I ask the wrong questions? Am I in trouble? After about 15 minutes, I break. I say, this sucks.
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
It feels like it was all a waste of time. I tried to remain positive throughout the whole experience. But like I said before, now I feel like I don't belong anymore. And that's a feeling I felt too many times before due to personal circumstances that I won't get into here. In the parlance of my generation, you could say I was triggered.
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
But a younger juror, juror six, who throughout the trial was sensitive and funny and kind and frankly gorgeous, says, you can't think like that. Everything happens for a reason. Still, my mood is sour after we were told that we basically have to sit in that jury room and continue to not talk about the trial until a decision is reached.
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
I try to figure out how I'm going to get the books back that I lent out to some of the real actual jurors. About 15 more minutes pass and there's a knock at the door. The bailiff points to another alternate and says, pick a number between 1 and 10. Nine, she says. Okay, you can all probably go home tonight. What? We say in chorus.
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
They've reached a decision, so we're trying to organize transport for you all tonight. He leaves and we're all stunned. It couldn't have been much longer than 30 minutes of isolation and they decided. I had always respected my fellow jurors for not taking the easy way out or lying or making excuses to get out of sequestration to begin with.
SEQUESTERED Podcast
Episode 08: Closing Statements
Now, after two weeks of being voluntold to uproot their lives and make a monumental decision, I respected them all the more. But still, I think, thank God I was an alternate.