Question:Freddie Gray Case.Who Selects The 12 Jurors?"The Powers That Be",Or The Attorneys.

So is this going to be another O.J. Trial? Where in the early stages half of the jurors didn't care for the evidence and had O.J. already declared innocent while the jurors in behalf of the Goldman were leaning for a guilty verdict and in the end set O.J.free? What will happen this time around? Will we have six black and six white jurors winding up with no decision,aka,"Hung Jury"?,Hopefully this will take place in the winter, last thing Baltimore needs are riots in the summer.

I lived in Baltimore City from 1990 to 2004. I was called up for jury duty just about every year – IIRC, you could be called once every 12 months and this may have changed, if you had served on a jury for 5 days or more, if so then they had to wait 3 years to call you again. Since I never served for more than 5 days, I got a jury duty summons approximately every 13-16 months the entire 14 years I lived in the city.

Several times I sat all day in the jury pool room and was never called into a courtroom for “voir dire”, a couple of times I called the phone number the night before and my number wasn’t in the selected range and I didn’t have to report, twice I was called for jury selection but was never questioned nor selected, but once I was questioned during “voir dire” and was dismissed, and I served on 4 juries - one was a civil case involving a pedestrian hit by a car, one was an armed robbery case (we convicted in less than 30 minutes), one was a burglary (and again we unanimously voted to convict based on the Baltimore City cop’s testimony and in about 10 minutes but thought it best to sit around and talk and wait a while) and one was an attempted murder case, the shooting of one gang banger by another.

I served on the attempted murder case for 4 days (started serving 5 days before Christmas BTW) but we spent probably all of about 3 hours in the court room. The “victim” of the shooting was brought into the courtroom in handcuffs and leg shackles because he was currently incarcerated in another unrelated case and awaiting trial (although the judge gave us instruction to ignore this and not let this prejudice us), but when he took the stand, he suddenly couldn’t remember anything and wouldn’t answer any questions.

There were also a bunch of friends of the defendant sitting in the back of the courtroom casting rather threatening looks toward the jury box. We jurors spent most of our time in the jury deliberation room as there were so many delays and motions, side bar discussion where we had to leave the courtroom. I recall there were several older black women serving on the jury with me and they expressed their concerns about their safety being that they lived in the same West Side Baltimore neighborhood (the hood) were these “thugs” ran rampant, “thugs” being their words not mine – and one of them said something to the effect of “they can cast their nasty and demon filled looks at me all they want, I’m not afraid of them anymore – I’m tired of them – we need to take a stand”. But I did look behind my shoulder as I left the courtroom and walked to the parking garage.

The case was eventually dismissed due to lack of evidence (because no one was willing to testify – “snitch”) and the judge, FWIW a Black man, came in to talk to us before letting us go and profusely apologized to us for our inconvenience, and also vented a bit about how frustrated he was about the current state of affairs in the City, the revolving doors of the “thugs” coming and out of his courtroom, witness intimidation and the “don’t snitch” attitude, even the ones he’d seen convicted and sentenced to long terms, that got back out because of “good” behavior or because prison overcrowding and ended up in front of him once again. He seemed to me like a good man and a good judge, but very frustrated.

http://www.baltocts.sailorsite.net/jury/juryFAQ.htm

“You are selected from a list of registered voters, licensed drivers and persons with an MVA identification card. The first time you are selected you are sent a questionnaire to determine if you qualify for jury service. You cannot serve on a jury in Baltimore City if you are not a resident of Baltimore City, have been convicted of a felony, or have a matter currently pending in the Baltimore City Circuit Court . Jurors who are qualified are selected on a random basis.

The times that I was called into a courtroom for jury selection, when the presiding judge asked basic screening questions like have you been convicted of a felony or have a matter currently pending before the court, nearly half of the people raised their hands and were dismissed. When he asked if anyone had been a victim of a violent crime, another good portion raised their hands.

Then he asked if anyone knew, was related to, had prior personal dealings with himself, the defendant, the plaintiff (in a civil trial), the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, ever had been or had close family members in law enforcement and did they think this would cause them to weigh more heavily any testimony of a police officer, and this was even before void dire where the prosecution and defense get to call out prospective jurors and ask questions or just eye them up and say “yes or no”.

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