Down to the wire

Disclaimer: This case has been completed and the jury released from the judge's admonition not to discuss the case.  

When we didn't even start on real deliberations yesterday, a couple of us were worried that this case could go on forever.  But immediately after the bailiff locked us in the jury room, the jury foreman called the group to order and began laying out his "game plan".  Now we're getting somewhere, I thought.  Forty-five minutes later he was still laying out his game plan.  Finally, to get things moving I interrupted with a request that someone else speak.  We started going around the table and it soon became evident that the foreman planned to comment on each comment and take twice as long as the original commenter.  I suggested, kindly but plainly that he needed to talk less so others could talk more.  Fortunately, he accepted my suggestion and I only had to remind him once other time.

At a point in our deliberations when some people were saying the law was not "black and white" we decided on a poll around to room for everyone to give their opinion about whether it was a black and white issue.  The count was 8 to 4 in favor of black and white.  (This referred to the unmistakable nature of the vehicle code.  All participants in this case were white.)  A poll shortly after this revealed that 2 of the "gray" proponents favored the felony charge and the other two, the misdemeanor charge.

We broke for lunch with everyone wondering whether we could ever come to an agreement.  But after lunch we had a couple hours of good discussion about whether laws are or can be shades of gray.  The two nay votes were coming around to see it more black and white which would change their vote.  About the time we would have had a break we took the final vote showing us unanimously in favor of guilty to the felony charge.

It still took an hour to assemble the lawyers, the defendant, and the alternate juror so that we could go back into the courtroom and render our verdict.  I noted with some relief that the guard on the defendant had been doubled for this occasion although in fact he showed no emotion when he heard the verdict.

The judge thanked us and as we all checked out we said goodbyes to the other jurors with hugs and handshakes.  I think it was  ultimately a good decision and everyone on the jury felt good about it.