My Experience on a Murder Trial Jury

18 min readSep 25, 2020

Jury Selection

Jury duty in the time of COVID-19 is a surreal experience. I was mixed into a group of about 200 people that had to line up outside of an events center making sure that we were all 6 feet apart. It took forever to get through security, and signing a statement indicating that you didn’t have any COVID symptoms. Once through you sit in a massive auditorium with chairs spaced out 6 feet apart and pray that they don’t call your number. I didn’t pray hard enough, and they placed me as juror #11 out of 60.

The fact that there were 60 jurors in my pool was a bad sign. Most other groups only had 30, and my assumption was that they were calling 60 because it was going to be more complicated. Our system requires 12 jurors for a case plus a few alternates, so they must have anticipated a difficult elimination process. Sure enough, one of the first things they told my group was that the trial would likely take about 3 weeks. They separated us all into 4 groups of 15 jurors based on assigned numbers. I was in group 1 which also meant that my only chance of escaping the trial would be through getting excused.

I wasn’t excused. The two forms of “excuse” are hardship excuses which the judge needs to approve and then peremptory challenges which are up to the attorneys to determine based on whatever impressions/whims that they hold. They’re only given a limited number of those peremptory challenges, so the hardship excuse is the easiest way out. That being said, it’s not easy. I explained that I’m a member of the executive team of a busy tech start-up and that my role over the finances means that someone else can’t easily fill in. That wasn’t enough. They grilled most people who attempted to float these excuses, and I didn’t see many people get through. My son had an emergency appendectomy during this week and they determined that since the operation went well and he would be recovering at home with my wife that it wouldn’t interfere with my ability to participate. I could have crafted a less honest response (an embellishment) and likely been excused. Being responsible for childcare was the only consistent way out. Ultimately, the jury selection process took 4 days to complete. It was tedious and boring with a lot of waiting and wondering.

The Trial Process

From a process standpoint, things were pretty awkward and didn’t seem perfectly thought out. Ordinarily the jury spends their time in a small conference room (deliberation room), but it’s impossible to space yourself out. So, they just gave the jury their own courtroom to wait in during breaks. They had court assistants assigned to retrieve us when we were needed. Everyone was required to wear masks, all the time, and once again we needed to fill out a daily health statement. I thought that they’d provide us with N95 masks, but they didn’t. I thought they’d provide us with some snacks, but they weren’t allowed to. There was a coffee pot in the back but it was covered in a mold colony. Interestingly, we were allowed to keep our phones and even bring in a laptop to get some work done during the downtime.

Speaking of downtime, there was a lot of downtime. Sometimes we’d show up in the morning and not get called back for an hour or so. Sometimes they’d remove us from the courtroom so they could discuss procedural items and we wouldn’t come back for a while. Other times we’d be in back to back testimonies for long stretches. There was never any way to know. So, you could try to work on a project but more often than not you’ll get interrupted at an inconvenient moment. Lunch was pretty consistent, though. We’d get an hour long break to grab some food, so I took advantage of the opportunity and tried out as many small restaurants in the area that I could.

While we were in court, we were busy taking notes. In order to keep us 6 feet apart they had the jury placed in the traditional public seats, and the jury seats were used for the public (a limited number). I found out later that the trial was also being streamed live on YouTube. The first two weeks were spent listening to testimony from witnesses and participants as well as police officers involved in the case. Some of this was very dull and procedural (most of the police officers described very similar events without much meaningful detail), but the participant testimony required a lot of attention because their stories were often inconsistent with each other, and even with their previous statements. I took a lot of notes and came home everyday with a sore hand.

We were shown a lot of exhibits (evidence). While we didn’t see each of these items, there were 184 numbered exhibits in the case. There were videos of interviews with the police, security camera footage, physical items (shoes, a purse, etc.), phone records, maps, facebook records, photos, and more. The State or Defense would introduce an item, have a witness identify it, and eventually they’d propose to admit it as evidence. This was frequently met with objections from the opposing counsel and either sustained or overruled by the judge. If something was admitted that means we’d get to consider it as part of our deliberations. If it wasn’t admitted, then we couldn’t. I found this whole process to require a great deal of concentration and active listening.

The Case

I’m not going to list the full names here because I don’t want people searching for the parties to find this. While I’m not ashamed or doubtful of my actions, I want to be respectful to the families involved and not have my thoughts be a distraction to their emotional process. There are several news stories that provide details as they were understood early on, and I’ve found this one to be detailed enough to give a foundation of the facts of the case. If you’re stuck behind a paywall, then this might help.

The main participants were:
David — the defendant
Kodi — a drug dealer and participant in the crime
Chris — Kodi’s connection to David (arranged for David to help)
Bri — a quasi victim/participant to the crime in question
Raul — the man who was killed
Ray — the driver

The really abbreviated version:

Bri arranged to buy drugs from an acquaintance of hers (Kodi). It was actually a setup, and two other people robbed Kodi at gunpoint (Raul was one of those robbers). They took his backpack with some cash, drugs, and personal belongings.
Kodi contacted Bri to try to get his stuff back. She claimed that she had no idea what those two people were going to do, and that they took the stuff (she had nothing to do with it). She said she felt bad and would make it right when she could. She also said that she did not have his stuff.
Kodi didn’t believe her and kept pushing. Bri stopped responding, and Kodi started trying to track her down.
Kodi started contacting people and asking them for a gun so that he could get revenge, payback, or possibly to just “get his stuff back”
Bri spent most of the day with Raul and decided that they should rob someone else. They contacted Chris and arranged to buy drugs from him late that night, but they actually planned on robbing him when he arrived.
Chris knows Kodi was robbed by her the day before, tells Kodi about this drug buy, and Kodi sees this as an opportunity to rob her back. Kodi wants a gun, Chris doesn’t want to be involved, but suggests that his “cousin”, David, could help him out.
Kodi talks to David, David agrees to go, and they get a ride from Ray to the drug buy location that night.
Kodi and the defendant sneak up on Bri and Raul, demand Kodi’s stuff back, and David flashes a gun as a threat.
Bri says no and walks away with Raul. Kodi and David pursue them around the parking lot
There’s a confrontation/escalation, Bri sprays Kodi with pepper spray and David shoots Raul

So, why is this complicated? Well, the whole thing starts because Bri stole from Kodi. Did he have a right to be upset? Sure. Is it reasonable to assume that if he confronted the thieves that they’d still be armed? Sure. While there are no “innocent” parties, we have to focus on events more immediate to the crimes being charged. David shot Raul, Raul died.

David was charged with Murder 1, and Murder 2. The relevant elements of Murder 1 are that there was an attempted robbery and that the death happened in the course of that crime. The defense spent a lot of time emphasizing that Kodi didn’t want to rob her, he just wanted to get his own stuff back. Kodi testified to this on the stand. However, there was surveillance video that clearly showed that Kodi did not quit when she said that she didn’t have it and that she wouldn’t give him her purse. The video also shows Kodi either reaching for or grabbing the purse (at the very least he’s moving towards her in a threatening way). Beyond that, both Kodi and Bri testified in court that he grabbed the bag. The bag does not belong to him, she said he couldn’t have it, and this is a substantial step towards robbery. The pepper spray and the shooting follow this. So, was there an attempted robbery? We believed this beyond a reasonable doubt. Was the death in the course of that robbery? It’s pretty clear that they’re directly linked. Could it have been more conclusive? Yes, but the burden is to overcome reasonable doubt.

Regarding Murder 2, it was weird to us that there was a second charge for murder, but there was only one murder. This is more of a legal strategy on the prosecution side because the ultimate charge depended on some of the in-court actions of the defense. Murder 2 is similar to Murder 1, but it requires an intent to cause the death of the victim, and the killing cannot be unjustified. To be justified, the shooter has to reasonably believe that he or another person are in danger. David claimed that Raul pulled a gun and pointed it at him. If this is true, then there definitely seems to be a threat there. This is also called self-defense, and David would have the legal right to stand his ground.

The critical missing piece to that argument is that self-defense (or a justified homicide) is dependent on the shooter not being the initial aggressor. By law, you cannot claim self-defense if your actions create a belligerent response that you’re defending yourself against. By pursuing Bri and/or reaching for the purse, Kodi and David provoke the belligerent response of spraying pepper spray and Raul (possibly) pulling a gun. Kodi and David are accomplices, and they created the necessity of using deadly force.

There was also a small argument that David did not “intend to cause the death” of the victim, but he shot him with a lethal weapon from short range. David understood the risks of shooting someone with a gun, and even asked police “How the (expletive) can you accidentally shoot someone??”. Intent takes into consideration that person’s understanding of the risks and other actions. It was hard to believe that there was another reasonable intent other than to kill.

If we couldn’t come to a unanimous decision regarding Count 2 (Murder 2) we would need to consider either Manslaughter 1 or Manslaughter 2. One of those trades intent to cause death with Recklessness, and the other trades it with Criminal Negligence. We didn’t need to move to this step, but we considered them regardless. Neither recklessness nor criminal negligence were appropriate given the other evidence and statements.

Other Debated Points

There was a lot of time spent discussing whether or not Raul pointed the gun at the David prior to the shot. It was discovered later that the victim’s gun was unloaded and in very poor condition, but this was irrelevant because David would not have known that. There was also conflicting evidence due to Bri placing the victim’s gun in her purse before police arrived (was charged with tampering with evidence). She claimed that she removed it from his waistband, but there may have been a moment on the surveillance video where she’s seen picking it up off the ground (although it’s not conclusive). When it came to our charges we determined that whether he was pointing the gun or not did not influence if the homicide was justifiable. Since David and Kodi instigated the conditions leading up to that action, it legally did not matter.

The defendant’s gun was never recovered. He and Kodi claimed that they buried it behind a gas station nearby, but the police did not know this until a full day later. By that point it was gone. It’s possible that the Chris (the arranger) helped recover it before then because he was arrested in the vicinity the next day. Ultimately, we just don’t know. During the trial I was concerned that we would not be able to overcome reasonable doubt about the weapon itself, but to our surprise David decided to plead guilty to the specific charge of possessing the firearm (there were originally four charges, he pleaded guilty to two of them towards the end). His reason for doing this was presumably because he felt his best strategy was to lean into the self-defense/justification argument, but he couldn’t reasonably make that argument unless we knew that he fired the shot. At the very end of the prosecution’s case we were literally instructed that there were two points that we must accept as “true”. One was that David was with Kodi at the scene, and the other was that David fired the shot.

The defense also continuously came back to the point that Kodi wanted his own stuff back. Kodi even testified on the stand that he didn’t intend to rob her (per his own definition), and that he wouldn’t take anything that wasn’t his. However, she told him she didn’t have it, that he couldn’t have her purse and tried to remove herself (and the victim) from the confrontation. So, even if it didn’t start off as a robbery, it became one during the course of the exchange. The defense even argued that she may have tried to take advantage of the situation and attempted to rob Kodi again (this was not supported).

One issue that we constantly ran into is that the witnesses lied. Frequently. About everything. Their statements rarely agreed to previous interviews with police, almost always showed themselves in the best light, and generally contradicted the other parties. We had to determine what (if any) point we found credible. There were some things that we found consistent (the dealer and the lady talking about grabbing the bag), but other parts of the narrative had to be ignored because they were obviously false. The most frequent frustration was them claiming not to know anything about the plan or intentions. We heard this from Kodi, from David, from Ray (getaway driver)…everyone.

Most of the participants in the case were habitual drug abusers/addicts and convicted criminals. Many of their actions were fueled by either a need to obtain drugs or being under the influence of heroin and meth at the time it took place. It was difficult to “put ourselves in their shoes” and decide what would seem reasonable if we were them. But that’s not the real test. It’s what a reasonable person would do or believe.

Some of the motivations never made sense. Based on the evidence and testimony that we had, we never understood what David stood to gain from the event. He was taking a risk by being at a drug deal with a gun while on probation from his previous sentences. He claimed to have agreed to go just to be helpful and as a favor to his friend (Chris). It was hard to believe, but not critical to the charges.

Once the prosecution had called all their witnesses and submitted their evidence, they rested their case. We were instructed to accept that the defendant was with the dealer and he fired the shot, and then the defense called their only witness (David himself). It’s somewhat unusual for the defendant to take the witness stand, but he was trying to prove his case about self-defense. His attitude during his testimony didn’t show any remorse for the results of his actions. He was cocky, slimy, and a bit of a smart-ass. He didn’t provide much information that we didn’t already know, except that he insisted that Raul pulled the gun (which we couldn’t prove with any other evidence). He gave details about wearing a holster, that he fired two shots and that one casing got stuck, and even claims that he was just able to outdraw Raul in the moment (although he also said that Raul pointed the gun at him). By doubling down on self-defense he narrowed the scope of our discussion.

Deliberation

Once the defense rested their case, the judge dismissed three random jurors (the alternates) and we were given jury instructions and sent back to deliberate our verdict. There were 42 specific instructions given to us. Some of them were a couple pages long. Some of them were a sentence or two. They contained the specific counts that we needed to decide as well as some underlying definitions and law that was required for us to make our decision. It took the judge at least half an hour to read through. We also reviewed this again by ourselves in the jury room, took some time to review our own notes from the trial (for the first time), and then we started discussing the case. The weird thing about being on a jury is that you’re spending a lot of time with these 14 strangers and the only thing you have in common is the case…but you’re not allowed to talk about the case until deliberations. We had a lot to say.

I nominated myself as the presiding juror. You have to have one, and I wanted to make sure that we stayed organized, that everyone was heard, and that we maintained the dignity of the process. We walked through every critical part of the counts, found all the pieces of evidence relevant to the sections, reviewed them together, and talked. We shared our notes, we aired and talked through our biases and frustrations, we created flow charts, lists, and diagrams. Before any serious discussion on a critical point we would take a blind vote to see where we initially stood. Even if we were unanimous we would spend time talking through it with someone playing devil’s advocate. After some debate we would take another blind poll. Someone would collect and count the votes, and on the second day when we were nearing our final decisions we’d have a second person review and count the votes again. Once that was established we all verbally confirmed where we stood (non-blind). At that point we read through every single instruction again, out loud, as a group and then made our final decision.

There was frequently at least one person undecided during this process. That was very comforting. My group of twelve jurors were super respectful, thoughtful, and committed to doing it right. We all started with the presumption of innocence and relied on the prosecution’s evidence to move us past reasonable doubt. As the presiding juror it was my name on the verdict, but we were all in agreement. In fact, after reading our verdict the judge polled us individually to confirm.

This was a terrible day for the defendant and his family. It was also not going to be a lasting comfort for the victim’s family. It was a somber experience, and many of the jurors were deeply impacted by witnessing the reaction of the defendant’s parents’ grief at hearing the two guilty counts. Even so, I felt like we fairly executed the process and came to the right conclusion based on what was available to us. In all honesty, emotionally speaking we wanted Bri in the defendant’s chair because when you back up the chain of events, it was her fault. I know that David’s family will feel that pain for a long time. What happened to Bri was outside of our control, and it was our job to decide the case in front of us. David took the risk of bringing the case to court and forcing the prosecution to overcome reasonable doubt. We believe they did.

Lingering Frustrations

It was brutal going through two weeks of painstaking evidence proving that the defendant was with the dealer and fired the shot. Having him plead guilty to those points at the end of that felt like a waste of time, but we knew it was his right and part of the process.

COVID made things hard. I never felt fully comfortable, or safe, during the process. People were not given N95 masks and we were instructed to just bring our own. This meant that many people wore vented masks, others didn’t cover their noses, etc. While most of the seats were 6 feet apart, we were rarely 6 feet apart while walking back and forth to the courtroom. It was impossible to stay 6 feet apart during deliberations (we were all over each other). It was also terribly uncomfortable to wear a mask for 8 hours a day. They provided us with hand sanitizer, but that was the extent of it.

The technology employed during the trial and deliberation phase was awful. The courtroom itself was old and not fully updated for modern electronics. It was difficult to see displays, the video camera on the witness stand was mounted on a canister of Clorox wipes, there was no way to slow down the playback of video exhibits, and for deliberations we were only given one small laptop to review video files (no ability to zoom or change the playback speed). Considering that this case has the possible consequence of life in prison it felt very glib to just “make it work.”

It’s hard to get clarification on legal instructions. None of us are lawyers but need to make determinations of intimidating legal language and structure. Most of this is laid out, but whatever is not explicitly defined comes down to common sense and judgement. When we submitted a request for clarification on a point, the response we received was “I am unable to provide additional information beyond what was provided in the instructions.”

You’re paid $10 a day for your jury service. As one of my fellow jurors said during voir dire “This is a financial hardship. You pay me $10 a day, and I just spent $9 on a burrito.” Some of my jurors didn’t have a job that would pay them for their time away and it was going to be a struggle to make rent. For me, the money wasn’t an issue, but my time was. I still had to do a large amount of work every night when I came home, and after 4 weeks I’m exhausted. I was glad that I could participate in the legal process and do my part, but it’s a big sacrifice for many.

This had nothing to do with the case, and it’s more of an observation than a frustration. We heard testimony from a lot of police officers and detectives. With the exception of the lead detective, they were all white, and all male. The jury was also 100% white. However, the defendant and all the participants were white as well. That’s why I don’t think there was any prejudice based on race (obviously) but when over 15 law enforcement officials testify related to a case and they’re all Caucasian it’s an obvious indication that there’s a diversity issue somewhere.

I walked away from this much more angry about our societal failures around guns and drugs. I’m not going to pretend to have the solution, but all of these people had previous felonies and are still getting into trouble due to these addictions. Someone who was recently incarcerated is selling firearms out of his home. This trial cost the state hundreds of thousands of dollars. Housing the defendant in prison for the next 20–50 years will cost much more. There have to be better ways to solve these problems.

Conclusion

So, that’s it. 3.5 weeks of my life came down to about 2 days of deliberation and what will be a lengthy prison sentence for a stranger. I’m glad it’s over, I truly never want to do it again, but I think that the system needs thoughtful and attentive people to keep these decisions fair.

If you’re ever called to a jury, I’ll make one more recommendation. You’re not required to hang around once the verdict is read, but I strongly encourage you to make yourself available for a discussion with the attorneys involved. In my case, both the prosecution and defense visited us in the jury room for a mutual Q&A once we had wrapped up. About half of us stayed, but a few of them didn’t think they would want to. It was terrific. We were able to discuss procedural questions that we weren’t allowed to know during the trial, we could get their honest opinions about the exhibits and testimony that we heard, and we received some candid answers about their confidence of the charges assessed during the process. They also wanted to understand our deliberation process. What did we spend the most time on? What helped remove the reasonable doubt? What we thought they could have done differently to make the case more clear. It was an honest, respectful, and raw discussion that helped bring closure to me and insight to them. I didn’t learn anything earth shattering during that discussion, but it was very refreshing to have a dialogue with them after observing their case for the past month.

Where are they now? It looks like Kodi and Ray both took plea deals. I saw something that indicated that Kodi was sentenced to 9 years in prison due to the severity of the crime and his previous felonies. Ray was pleaded guilty and is serving a sentence (I believe), but I couldn’t confirm the details. Bri became a fugitive, was arrested for a string of gym locker robberies, and is currently detailed in Nevada. Chris is pending trial for similar charges to David (he was an accomplice).