Jim Shella: We owe jurors in Trump case gratitude

I vote. Never miss. It means I’m always in the pool for jury duty. I report when summoned and, as a result, have been named to three juries.

Because of that experience, I was constantly thinking of the jurors as I watched coverage of Donald Trump’s hush money trial last month.

We don’t know who the jurors were because there was no televised coverage, and the court sought to protect their identities. We do know they are a diligent group of people who gave up their normal lives for the better part of five weeks to engage in civic duty. They took that duty seriously, as no alternate jurors were required to step up. They put in long days and delivered a verdict. Make that 34 verdicts.

Trump says the trial was rigged because jurors came from Manhattan, which is predominantly Democratic. He assumed most of them were Democrats. He deserved, he said, a change of venue. I would argue that, in fact, Trump chose the venue himself because Manhattan is where he committed his crimes.

But I digress. From my experience, jury deliberations are solemn experiences. Someone might crack a joke to break tension, but the focus is on the facts and the law from the time the bailiff leaves the room until he’s called to inform the judge a verdict has been reached.

Do facts outside the case get considered? Yes. For example, I was foreman in a murder case involving a shooting outside a Halloween party in Speedway. The victim threatened the defendant during the party and was then shot in the back as he left. One of the jurors announced that he was once in a similar situation.

He said he was playing basketball when there was a dispute, he was threatened, and he ran to his gym bag to find a gun. His antagonist left and was out of sight by the time he got to the door. At that point, I directed him back to the jury instructions and encouraged everyone to focus on the facts of the case in front of us.

Which gets me to jury instructions. They matter. I was amazed that New York law doesn’t permit the jury to keep a copy, something we all learned when the Trump jury asked for some of them to be read back.

I served on a jury in a domestic violence case where the defendant sliced his girlfriend’s neck from ear to ear with a box knife. Because she had a double chin and the blade was so short, she survived. Yet he was charged with attempted murder, and the jury instructions said we could draw a motive based on the weapon and where it was applied. I read that instruction over and over to undecided jurors. We convicted.

We also voted for conviction in the Speedway murder case, and I didn’t realize the gravity of the moment until I thought I might be asked to announce the verdict in open court. The prospect made me very nervous. In the end, the judge did it.

That brings me back to the Trump jurors and my fear that their identities will become public. Republicans on social media are already proposing that they be outed. After the Speedway murder case, a bailiff offered to walk me to my car. I said, “It’s OK.” He said forcefully, “No. I’ll walk you to your car.”

Jury duty can be dangerous. We owe those 12 people in New York a debt of gratitude.•

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Shella hosted WFYI’s “Indiana Week in Review” for 25 years and covered Indiana politics for WISH-TV for more than three decades. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

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