I spent the morning in county court observing proceedings as research for a short story. My main objective this morning was voir dire, the jury selection process. Since I’m not eligible to serve on a jury in the U.S., I won’t ever experience the process first-hand. The case was a DWI, which seems fairly simple on the face of it, but the voir dire took over an hour and the attorney questions covered such territory as whether prospective jurors had past alcohol-related experiences that might cloud their judgment, whether they were more likely to believe a police officer testifying than anyone else, and the fact that the defendant might not testify might lead them to believe more in their guilt.
What I found fascinating was how the prospective jurors’ personalities emerged in such a short period. After a while, I could tell how certain people were probably going to respond to particular questions. If you have stories to share about being on a jury panel, feel free to add them as comments. The judge was a cool dude, who came down from the bench and opened himself to questions about anything (except the case) during lulls in activity. One of his most interesting revelations: a lawyer can become a judge without ever having tried a case. His admonition: know who you’re voting for in judge elections.
I watched the first half of the Saints/Bears game yesterday, but once the chasm opened, I switched over to the Law & Order marathon. I could hardly bear to look away from the screen during the Patriots/Colts game, though. What a nail biter. I was really rooting for the Pats, but not for any particular reason. They’re both excellent teams.
I got a grand total of 2000 words written on a new short story this weekend. It wasn’t a smooth process. I wrestled and wrangled with words, paragraphs, scenes. I think I finally discovered where the story is going this morning, only after writing and rewriting and re-rewriting the opening sections. This is either going to be a good story or an abysmal one. At this point I can’t tell any more. During the first football game yesterday, I also wrote a review of Joseph Wambaugh’s Hollywood Station. I also received the page proofs of my story “Sturm und Drang” from A Dark and Deadly Valley. I only made a couple of very minor editorial fixes—deleted a comma, uncontracted a contraction—and got the proofs back to the editor straight away.
I posted a batch of auctions on eBay yesterday. I decided that life’s too short and there are just too many books to read, so it’s unlikely I’ll ever reread most books I buy—so why keep em? So, I’m dumping six recent hardcovers that I’ve reviewed at Onyx Reviews, all with low, low starting prices. The seventh book, Reassuring Tales by T.E.D. Klein is one that I was looking forward to so much that I accidentally bought two of the 600 numbered, signed copies. Here’s your chance to get a $40 edition for less than ¼ of the price.
The books are
- Hollywood Station by Joseph Wambaugh (w/ promo material)
- Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris
- Naming of the Dead by Ian Rankin (not yet out in US)
- Echo Park by Michael Connelly
- The Keep by Jennifer Egan
- Next by Michael Crichton
- Reassuring Tales by T. E. D. Klein (signed/limited)
“One of his most interesting revelations: a lawyer can become a judge without ever having tried a case. His admonition: know who you’re voting for in judge elections.”
As an attorney, I fully agree with the know-who-you’re-voting-for idea, but I have to say that trying cases, with juries and all the accompanying TV-style drama, is not the largest part of a judge’s job. Of course this is more true in civil court than criminal, but even in criminal court, a large part of the judge’s job is paper and minutiae: motions, argument on legal issues, ruling on interim issues, arraignments, etc. A criminal judge does deal more with trials than a civil judge, but it’s still the sort of thing we all learn in law school (shocking, I know, we do actually learn a few things in law school), and once a lawyer learns the rules of trial and evidence, most lawyers should be able to apply them, whether they’ve tried a case themselves or not.
In civil court, only about 5% of cases ever go to trial (this is the stat I always heard, anyway). Thus a civil judge needs to be more well-versed in motion practice, argument, writing, editing, etc. My own day of civil jury duty can be found here, if you’re interested.
Also, if I can help in any way from the attorney prospective (I’m a civil lawyer now, I interned at the prosecutor’s office in law school, and clerked for a civil judge after law school), feel free to email me at artemiswinter@aol.com.
Thanks very much — I may take you up on that when I get around to writing the story.
This morning, two of three potential trials were resolved by eleventh-hour plea bargain. The judge told the jury pool: just by being here, you got things done. The threat of a trial resolves many cases!
Heck, all you had to do was read the novelette “Voir Dire” in my collection Walk in Shadows!
Crap — I wasted a whole morning. Why didn’t you tell me?
I was amused by the Texan judge’s pronunciation of the phrase, which was approximately “vore dyer.” I know it’s Latin, but I can’t read it or say it without making it sound French.
You make it sound French because it is French! Or “middle French”, according to Wikipedia. It means “to tell the truth.”
For sure, settlement/pleas often happen mere moments before the trial starts.
“His admonition: know who you’re voting for in judge elections.”
Very interesting. I spent 7 years working for a trial lawyer firm in Chicago and that’s the closest I ever came to knowing ANYthing about the judges (“So-and-so is tough, let’s hope the case is assigned to such-and-such.”). In the elections, you never seem to hear anything about the judges and for the most part, the first time you ever see a judge’s name (well, assuming you’re not the kind of person who ends up standing in front of his or her bench on a regular basis!) is on the election ballot.
In modern French, it means “to see speaking”