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We submitted our questions to the judge. I don't remember them all, but they were rather straightforward. Two men were in a car when stopped by a police officer. Only one man appeared in court, and he disputed the officer's account. Where was the other one and why didn't he testify? A gun was discovered. Whose gun was it? Was it stolen? Was it linked ballistically to any crime? The whole thing started as a routine traffic stop on the two men, who were from out of town and had turned the wrong way on a one way street in the wee hours of the morning. That's a mistake anyone can make at 4:00 a.m. when there is no traffic around, but what were they doing in DC driving around at 4:00 a.m. in the first place (they were from New York, and therefore not to be trusted), and whose car was it anyhow? That sort of thing. We all thought there was something else in play, and we were not being told what it was.

Underlying all this was the jury's mystification that such a case -- a routine traffic stop compounded by the discovery of a gun in the car -- was coming before a jury to begin with. The only thing I could think of is that DC's draconian gun control law was driving the manipulation. At the time, getting caught with a gun would lead to being drawn and quartered, disembowled, burned and beheaded, and everyone, including the prosecution, may have been angling for a lesser penalty. But then, why was the charge brought to begin with?

The defense attorney's closing argument ended with, "Deciding a case is like putting together a puzzle. To vote for conviction, you have to have all the pieces. And in this case, you don't have all the pieces." I'm sure I'm not the only juror who was thinking, "You %$?!**!+@)/, or words to that effect. We knew we didn't have all the pieces. We had asked the judge some very simple questions simply to assemble a reasonable picture of the case, and we had been stiffed. It was obvious that this was a rigged, keep-the-jury-in-the-dark mock trial. The entire jury was aggravated.

I have often shared your keen frustration at wondering about gaps in the evidence, testimony, explanations, and motivations. Lately it seems there is some movement to permit jurors' questions, but it's still very limited. A lot of the mystery is due simply, I think, to attorneys' (including judges') incompetence at failing to anticipate jurors' legitimate needs--not to mention, as you imply, hidden nefarious motives.

Generally, attorneys and judges are exempt, I believe, from jury service themselves and so have missed the experience personally of wondering as you and I have. The main safeguard on which they rely is the adversarial system, which they trust will surface everything actually necessary--but, of course, we've found that to be often insufficient.