THE LAST WORD

...However, such summonses are sent only to that segment of the community that is likely to have no occupational or other excuses for avoiding jury service...

...That same case, we were told, was to Mark Davidson, the author of "Uncommon Sense," is the science writer for the University of Southern California News Service and a professor of communications at California State University, Dominguez Hills...

...Did I believe teleology has a place in the courtroom...

...If you fail to give the "correct" answers during the process of interrogation, you are peremptorily returned to the jury assembly room, a dreary den of daytime television where you'll find many Repeatedly Rejected Jurors (RRJs) whiling away their time...

...One RRJ, a young lawyer, confided to me that "neither the prosecution nor the defense wants me, because I know all their tricks...

...A woman who volunteered to be our foreman declared that the defendant's protestations of innocence were probably false because "defendants have a motive to lie...

...whenever I attempted to discuss what I regarded as crucial gaps in the state's presentation...

...The prosecutor also wanted to know whether my scientific background might lead me to expect an inhuman degree of exactitude from his witnesses...

...But in a theft-from-a-vehicle case in which I somehow survived the weeding-out process, excellence was not apparent...

...What did I regard as the ultimate purpose of existence...

...In all my cases, the judge polled the panelists to make sure we were not associated with organizations that were even remotely related to the subject matter at issue...

...But a vocal clique of jurors, impatient because their ten-day-minimum tour of duty was about to be completed, forced the doubters into a meek capitulation, We ended up with a deadlock of 11-tome...

...At first, four jurors shared my doubts about the strength of the state's case...

...And, as a jury panelist in four criminal cases and an actual juror in a fifth, I can testify that jury selection becomes progressively less random as prospective jurors are weeded out during interrogations that sometimes take longer than the trial itself...

...Not knowing whether existentialists are considered friends or enemies of the court, I equivocated by saying I was only so-so about Sartre but crazy about Camus...

...One juror slept through most of our two days of deliberations...

...Unhesitatingly, the eager-to-please juror said yes...

...In another case, in which the defendant was accused of selling cocaine to an undercover policeman, I had to confess that I had written articles and television programs about drug abuse and that I had profound reservations about the effectiveness of our Government's antidrug efforts...

...In a third case, the prosecutor smiled approvingly when a juror opined that "liars are easy to spot because they blush, sweat, and don't look you in the eye...

...THE LAST WORD Mark Davidson Trial by Jury There must be a better way to pick jurors—better, that is, than the process I witnessed when I was summoned to service recently by the jury commissioner of Los Angeles County...

...When I responded that innocent defendants are motivated to tell the truth, she said I had no right "to engage in speculation...

...In a case involving a man accused of driving under the influence of a prescription drug, for example, the judge directed us to swear we were not members of Mothers Against Drunk Driving...

...More shockingly, to judge from the prosecutor's expression, I confessed that I had once conducted a journalistic investigation that resulted in freeing an innocent man from prison...

...At the end of the second day of jury selection, an instant after the defense accepted a thoroughly winnowed jury that still included me, the prosecutor consigned me to the existential void of the assembly room...

...She subsequently interrupted me with shouts of "Out of order...

...In two cases, the prosecutor assured us that a juror can detect a lie in the courtroom as easily as a parent can detect a child's fib...

...I pleaded not guilty...

...Next time, if the prosecution is lucky, it will have a jury composed entirely of people who are so uninformed and so uninterested that they will do exactly as they're told...

...The defense attorney then asked me questions that seemed designed to ridicule the prosecutor's performance: As the author of a book about scientific philosophy, did I believe jurors should apply inductive or deductive reasoning...

...Finally, you must promise the prosecution that you need only your "common sense" to weigh conflicting testimony and determine whether a witness is lying...

...I said I didn't have the autosugges-tive skill to induce such amnesia...

...When one panelist in the same case, a retired Army medic, acknowledged that he had administered prescription drugs for thirty-two years, the prosecutor asked, "Can you put your knowledge about drugs out of your mind for the duration of the trial...

...The summons stated that I had been chosen by "random selection required by law to insure community representation on all jury panels"—a noble procedure that comports with our nation's laudable standards of justice...

...feature police and scientific testimony, and the prosecutor asked me whether I could blot out the knowledge I had acquired as a journalist covering the crime and science beats...

...The judge had to declare a mistrial, leaving the state free to try again...

...But you must also assure the prosecution that you are perfectly willing to find the defendant guilty even though you have a "shadow of a doubt" and therefore aren't certain at all...

...Indeed, if you admit to knowledge or concern about almost anything, you are likely to arouse the suspicion that you aren't proper jury material...

...Was I an existentialist...

...What kind of juries does this selection process produce...

...Also, you must concur with the prosecution that police witnesses deserve respect because they have been specially trained, but you must agree with the defense that police witnesses are to be given no more credence than anyone else...

...Though I hastened to add that another of my investigations had led to an arrest and conviction, the prosecutor banished me...

...Another juror, who spent much of the time reading newspapers in the men's room, began the deliberations by declaring, "Maybe I shouldn't say this, but the defendant obviously is poor, and that certainly gives him a motive to steal...

...Despite everything, some may be excellent...

...To qualify as a juror, according to my experience, you must agree with the defense that the defendant is innocent unless proven guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty...