Jury selection is fascinating, yet tedious process

While many fear it, others, like me, wish it upon themselves.


I’m talking about jury duty.

I had my first real opportunity to serve on a jury this week, as I was one of 100 people in Portage County selected to be in the jury pool for a big four-week murder trial taking place all this month.

Knowing there was little chance I would actually be selected to sit on the 15-person jury (which includes three alternates), I figured I’d show up Monday for jury selection and get sent quickly back to my job.

“Do you have any conflict of interest?” I thought I’d be asked.

“Yes, I’ve written about this case for The Gazette,” I’d reply.

“Go back to work then. No jury duty for you.” This, of course, is said in the voice of the infamous “Soup Nazi” from a classic “Seinfeld” episode.

Boy, I couldn’t have been any more wrong in how that conversation, or should I say nonconversation, would take place, and I learned many other things about jury duty on Monday.

The day began at 7:45 a.m., as potential jurors needed to report 15 minutes prior to the 8 a.m. start to get through the new security procedures at the courthouse. Lt. Daniel Kontos and his crew, despite having only several weeks to adjust to the new procedures, did an excellent job in getting people – more than 100 in all – through security quickly and without hassle. One person even noted this is much better than an airport, which I took more as a compliment than as a backhanded criticism.

Once inside the courtroom, which was quite crowded, Clerk of Courts Bernadette Flatoff spoke for approximately half an hour about the jury selection process, as well as a little bit about its history in Wisconsin.

I learned potential jurors are selected from license and identification card data bases now, and not voter registration rolls as I assumed they were still chosen from as in the past. It allows for a bigger pool, said Flatoff, and allows the pool to serve for only one month, rather than six months as they have had to serve in the past.

I also learned not everyone there that day will be selected for questioning. Rather, 29 of the 100 in the pool were selected for questioning, and they were considered the jury members.

When Judge Thomas Flugaur entered the room, he explained a few more rules, and noted he will be the first and only person to ask questions of jury members for the first part of the selection process. Over the course of the next few hours, he asked a series of “Yes” and “No” questions, to which members raised their hands when they had a “Yes” answer. Some of these questions included: “Do you know the district attorney?” “Do you know the defendant?” “Do you know any of the witnesses (and then he read the names of all 66 potential witnesses)?” And so on.

The questions also included: “Do you know anything about the case?” That’s the question I wanted to answer, because I knew it would get me off the jury.

After he asked those questions, each of the 29 potential jurors was questioned individually, in another room, by the judge, and possibly the attorneys, although I’m not sure since I wasn’t in the room. I believe they were asked more in-depth questions based on their previous answers, although, again, I’m not sure since I wasn’t there to hear those questions.

This process took place for several hours before lunch, and then again several hours after lunch (which was catered for us across the street in the Annex Building). And every once in a while, those individual jurors did not return following individual questioning, as they were dismissed for various reasons.

After all 29 members were questioned, 24 remained. Instead of selecting from those 24, five of the remaining 71 jury pool candidates were selected randomly in a drawing to fill those five empty seats. I was not among those five. The new members were then questioned by the judge, and then individually questioned, with some of them eventually getting dismissed.

After a similar third round, 29 members were in place. Since the jury was not officially seated, the remaining jury pool candidates had to stay as those 29 members were questioned by both the district attorney and the defense attorney.

Their questions were not as easy to interpret, as they included questions about fishing licenses, lead sinkers, firearms and other seemingly random things. For those who knew nothing about the case, the questions must have seemed weird. Other questions weren’t questions so much, but more like statements that were said to the jury for the lawyers to gauge reactions, as body language is probably just as important to a lawyer in selecting a juror as actual answers.

Following their questions, each of the two sides were able to eliminate seven members, until the jury of 15 was left remaining. With them in place, the judge dismissed all of us who were not selected, nearly eight hours after the process began.

It was an experience I’m glad I was able to see firsthand, and it’s one I’m glad I brought a book to, as it may have been a lot harder without having anything to do.

If you are ever selected for jury duty, don’t worry, though. This day was an exception, Flatoff noted, as the process is usually much quicker with smaller cases. Maybe I’ll get selected for one of those cases, as I still have the potential in April, and I’ll actually get the opportunity to be seated on a jury for a case I might know nothing about. That would be interesting.