What my experience for 2 years on a Federal Grand Jury was like

Kyle Friedrichs

               The reason I am writing this is not to complain about jury service or ask for sympathy but to maybe give a perspective of what is a federal grand jury that most people will never see.  And I may just add a few things that I think are strange.

What is a grand jury?

So what is a grand jury?  Before spending time talking about it, I figured I should say what it is and is not.  What a grand jury does is listen to the government’s case and determine if they think there is enough evidence to proceed with a trial.  They do not decide if a person is guilty or innocent just if it makes sense for there to be a trial.  They are supposed to make sure people are not charged with baseless crimes.

The letter

In late 2015 I received a jury duty notice in the mail.  It was for federal service.  I had served once before in a county grand jury, I was 22 at that time and 30 this time around.  The reason I mention this I will come back to later.

The day I was supposed to report was the week before my daughter was due so I requested to postponed my service, no issue there.  A few months later I got a new later with a new date to show up Sept 15th 2016.

County Jury

Now before I get too far into this Jury I want to give some history about the first time I had jury duty.  That service was for one month 2-3 times a week.  The selection for this jury was done in a way that at the time and since I have thought gave a good cross section of people.  They had called about 80 people to serve and they put all our names into what amounted to a bingo wheel.  They pulled out 69 names for 3 juries and we were those that served.  The only ways we could get off is if we were active duty military and would be deploying or if we provided child care for any young children and could prove that we could not afford alternative care.  No one qualified.

The sent us to a room that first day and we had some time to talk and introduce ourselves to each other.  It was actually a very diverse group.  In terms of age we went from 21 to early 70s.  About half the room, a little less, had a college degree and we had a range of occupations from Lawyer to Veterinarian to Engineer to Truck driver to Landscaper.  It was also a good cross section in term of ethnicity and gender.

At that time the state required a company to pay 3 days of salary a year for jury duty, my company paid me for 5 and the rest was paid by the government, about $40 a day.  Some people were paid for the whole time others that worked for themselves not at all.  For me losing 4 days of pay was not a big deal, I was 22 and lived with my parents.  But for some people this was not as easy but not so hard that anyone felt unfairly punished and did consider Jury a service.

The cases we heard were nothing that makes the national news.  A break in to a store, a bar fight.  The worst we heard was a violent assault.  I had, when I started been told an old saying that any decent prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich for murder and I could see where it came from at that time.  None of the votes we had, on a grand jury you just need 12 to vote yes, were close.  In many ways it makes sense (not that its right) we are only hearing the prosecutors side of the store and they have a lower burden of proof than a real trial.  If they can’t get a grand jury to say yes they should not bother bringing it to trial. 

For me after a month that was that, we all got a letter saying we don’t have to serve on another jury for a few years and the DA thanked us for our service.

Back to now

On Sept 15th I showed up for jury duty and sat down in a large waiting room with about 90 people.  I had brought a book and started to read.  After about 20 minutes they closed the doors and turned on a video that looked like it was a PSA from the 80’s.  The first thing it does is to welcome us to federal grand jury service.  Having served on a Grand Jury before and knowing someone who had served on a federal one before I knew what it meant and my mind screamed some type of profanity. 

At that point I think most people had no idea what that meant.  But about 30 seconds later the video let us know that we would be serving for 18 months to 2 years.  You could hear a pin drop, if we weren’t in a federal courthouse hearing it most people would probably think it was a joke.  The video went on talking about the reason for service and all the other things you would expect.

The court officers then proceeded to call around 50 of us upstairs.  We filed into a court room where a judge gave us some instructions and started calling us up one at a time.  What she said was there that were 4 ways to get off this jury duty:

1) Be over 70 years old

2) Move out of the district

3) Prove that you can not understand the concepts that will be discussed

4)  Prove that it will be an undue hardship either personally or financially for you

Since the first 3 are clear cut most people went up and tried to get out using the 4th options.  People did not want to serve, I was among them.  The only group that clearly got off were those that did not have jobs or those who jobs would not pay them during their jury service.  And on this topic throughout the jury service they did allow people off who started to really struggle at work although some people did exaggerate their troubles.  Although there were several jurors who exaggerated the hardships they faced to get off

After questioning people they selected 23 jurors, including me, and 10 alternates.  The took the 23 regular jurors to our jury room and gave us some logistical instructions.  At that time we were told to expect 2 days a week 8 hours a day for 18 months.  I think many of us were in shock trying to figure out what and how we would tell our jobs.

Job reaction

That night after I got home I was truly worried about what would happen to my career, thinking that I would miss 40% of my work for the next year and a half.  I knew my job could not fire me for being on jury duty, but it is stressful thinking about what you may miss by losing so much time and how it may affect your future.

               My manager had the type of reaction one would expect when someone that works for them tells them they have 18 months of jury duty up to twice a week.  First that they are joking, then anger, followed by asking if there is some way out of it.  After talking with HR and legal and basically being told “too bad” it became about planning how we would react.

               I personally also checked the company policy which was written to cover pay for all of any jury duty.  I am guessing they thought about changing that after seeing what happened with me.

               By this point I had figured I would be putting in a ton of extra hours since I would come to work early leave to go to jury duty and work after.

               Luckily from Sept to Dec our jury was only called in 7 times for a total of 16 hours in the courthouse. (Plus 2 hours travel time each day).  Although the next 3 months I went in twice as much.  The longer it went the more manageable it became but it was still difficult to have to plan 2 days every week where I may have to disappear from work and only know the day before.  It did eventually become a routine.

               Future months got busier but I got lucky that the times I was busy at work jury duty was light and in a pinch I could always call out that day and they were accommodating.

               Overall my worst fears on what it would due to my job were not realized although it still added a lot of stress.

Juror Dynamics and Make up

               When you spend 24 months with 22 other people in a closed room you get to talking.  Like with any group of people you end up having alphas and talkers and quiet ones.  In a grand jury the jurors are allowed to ask questions of the witnesses.  Questions were not evenly balanced though some people asked many and some asked none.  Towards the beginning as a group we asked more but after a while we asked less and less.  Although we may not have admitted it there became a sense of inevitability on how every vote would go.  Along with us having a better understanding of the laws.

               As the weeks and months progressed some jurors left and we called in the alternates, overall the dynamics did not change much.  What was interesting though was how the shape of the jury changed.  By the end I was the youngest Juror with only one other person under the age of 40.  Beyond that the racial diversity of the Jury ended up shifting a bit more White than the constituency of the area.  The education level was also a bit above what would be expected and I think this was in part due to some people that were excused because their jobs did not pay them and they could not afford to miss work.  The last set of diversity that seemed to happen was due to some of the more alpha personalities claimed work hardships and got excused.

               In the end the Jury was skewed white and educated with mostly B type personalities.  It also had peoples who’s jobs were more flexible and by that I mean paid them while they were there or they worked at other times, like myself, to make up the time.

               I did grow to see this as an issue the longer the jury went along with us not being a true representation of the community.

Case Dynamics

               One difference between a Grand Jury and Regular Jury is that the details of the cases we hear are secret.  So we can not say what cases we were on or talk about it in any way that someone can figure out what case we are on.  There are a few reasons for this.  The first being that in many cases people are still free and have not been arrested yet and they may run if they knew there were being indicted.  The second seems to be one of fairness, if grand jury transcripts became public or details came out before a trial it could effectively be like trying a person in the public eye without them having a chance to defend themselves.  Just think about how unfair any trial or debate would be if you only hear one side.

               An interesting side piece about us not being able to talk about our cases is that our co workers knew when we went to Jury Duty.  They also can read the news.  On one occasion, early in the jury duty, I had a coworker who saw that a person had been indicted and knew I was there that day.   And asked me about it.  I told them I could not say anything about any specific case and could not confirm if I had heard anything about it, but I am apparently a bad liar.  The next time I went to jury duty I asked the ADA (assistant district attorney) who was on that case what I should do.  Her question to me was “Do you think you need protection?”.  That thought had not crossed my mind up until that point and lets just say that was not at all comforting for me or the rest of the jury to hear.

               Another key difference between a regular jury and a grand jury is that we heard dozens of cases.  At times each day felt like a new episode of law and order.  In a way after hearing many cases it sort of numbs you, a murders a robbery a shooting a drug deal it all kind of blurs together.  In a strange way the most painful cases to sit through were financial ones (excluding any that involved kids which were by far the worst).  The reason the financial ones were so painful is there tedium, lets be honest there is no White Color Law and Order show that tries to show real cases.

               Throughout the time on the Jury we got to know the ADAs  and the whole process.  Some funny moments came late in the jury duty where we know more about the paperwork and A/V in the room that then some of the new lawyers.  This familiarity though ended up reinforcing a feeling of rubber stamping the decisions.  After the presentation before the ADAs left us to deliberate they would tell us “If you have any questions before you vote please come out and let us know and we will try to provide that information to you.”  In effect what they are saying is that if we are not going to vote for an indictment let them know so they can change our minds.

What do I think is the real purpose of a grand jury

The whole experience was 2 years long (minus 3 days).  Overall there were a lot of ham sandwiches.  Nothing was every close to be being voted down (although there were some cases or evidence that were presented to us that were never charged).  Some could argue that this was because the government would only present something it knows it can at least indict for.  Which partially may be true but the system is certainly rigged in their favor.

               It also is quite expensive, each time we were called in it cost around $1,500 for our “pay” and expenses.  This comes out to over $100,000 during our service.  This does not include any court costs or the time from the ADA.

               But I did spend a lot of time thinking about what the Grand Jurys real purpose was for and how it can be improved.  I did come up with some things that I thought it was good for:

1)  Its stated purpose of stopping completely crazy charges probably does work.  I do think ADAs want to make sure they never get turned down for an indictment.  This stop crazy charges

2) It gives the ADAs a chance to give a dress rehearsal of there evidence.  Based on the questions that the jury asks they can adjust if they go to trial.  Which to be fair probably gives them a bit of an advantage over the defense at a trial

This next though could go either way depending on your thoughts of the justice system

The indictments are used to get people to cooperate or make a plea.  Which could also be a negative if they do so more out of fear than real guilt.

There are also some ways I think the process could be improved.

1) Make the service times shorter which would allow a more diverse group of people to serve.

2) Create more of a separation between the ADAs and Jurors, it became almost a friendly relationship between the two groups.  Although one person said Stockholm’s syndrome.

The other question I spent a lot of time on was “Is a grand jury worth doing?”

Overall I don’t think so.  There are several downsides to it but mainly little upside.  There is the cost in both money and time as negatives.  And the main upside, the protection from false prosecution, is not something I think a grand jury really does a good job of protecting people from.  This is also something that can be checked.  About half of the states do not use grand juries so society can check to see if those without grand juries have a lower conviction rate than those that do.  If a grand jury truly protects people from false prosecution, we would expect to see a lower conviction rate in those states that don’t.  I do know that there are many other factors at play here but the concept can be checked.