One of the largest courtrooms I’ve seen. A large, vaulted roof. There must have been eight rows of three long pews. 24 in all. Each one was filled from end to end with people, to the point where they lined up along the back wall as well. In total, there were likely around 150 people in that room. Sitting in the back, I recognized 90% of them, if not more. Why?
Because today was jury selection. And before jury selection, we prepared for everyone.In the week before the fateful day, I had been assigned a new and interesting task. One of the files was heading toward a jury trial and didn’t seem like it was going to settle. To prepare, I had to find out everything I could about the potential jurors. I needed to create a list that the lawyers could use to determine which jurors they wanted and which they did not.
The first step was going to the Courthouse and getting the jury list. They kept it short and sweet; all I had was the potential jurors’ name and a “listed occupation” (which ranged from “student” to “government”). In short, not much to go on.
So, I spent two days looking through the list. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or good old-fashioned Google. Really, anywhere I thought they could be. With some names, I found nothing. Maybe an author with the same name who wrote a book on advanced mathematics in the 1970s. Maybe a genealogical family history with the same name. Nothing substantial.
But with other names, there was much more to learn. One individual ran a 10K in under 25 minutes. Another individual sued five different parties in the span of three years. A third individual actually practiced law for several years in another province before moving to Ontario and somehow still made it onto the list of potential jurors. That was certainly a surprise when I found it. It was an interesting assignment, not only trying to identify the right person but also trying to determine what could be important and what would be extraneous.
What I truly was not prepared for, though, was what happened the next morning. I went in early, but instead of heading to the firm, I went to the Courthouse to join the lawyers there. On that day, the jury selection room, despite its size, was filled to the brim with people. Walking in, I saw someone I recognized, but I could not remember where I recognized them from. Then I recognized another. And another. Until I realized they were not people I knew but forgot about; they were the jurors that I had researched and reviewed. It truly is an odd feeling to recognize people who would never recognize you.
This left me sitting in the Courtroom during jury selection, watching the process alongside 150 other potential jurors, Lawyers, Court Staff and the Judge. For each juror, the Registrar would spin an old wooden box with the name of each juror inside. He would then pull a name, read it out, and the juror would approach. For the most part, it was oddly like bingo.
At the start, the Registrar did this six times, with six jurors at the front of the Courtroom. Each was asked if they were available for the length of the trial. Most gave reasons to be excused. Some had prepaid vacations. Others had labour contracts they were required to fill; participating in the trial would cause economic hardship. Two older individuals were concerned about sickness and their ability to pay sufficient attention; they were dismissed on compassionate grounds.
Eventually, six jurors were in the jury box. At this time, the Lawyers looked them over and started exercising their peremptory challenges, dismissing jurors that they believed would not weigh in their favour. And so, the cycle continued. Jurors were called; some gave excuses and were dismissed, while others were dismissed by peremptory challenges.
It took 41 jurors to finalize the six jurors and two alternates for the trial. 150 jurors were called, 41 were excused, eight were selected, and in the end, six participated in the trial.
by Max G.