Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Courtblogging (day 2)

Day 2 of the "trial.". Yesterday afternoon we got through an hour of jury selection before we had to adjourn for the judge to hear another motion.

This morning's jury selection only went about 45 minutes before both sides agreed to 12 folks. It was at this point everything came to a screeching halt, when a jury member raised his hand to tell the judge he hadn't been sworned in. The rest of the jury chimed in that they hadn't been given an oath.

The judge was fuming at this point and sent the jury away. A few minutes later the judge had the jury clerk state she "didn't remember whether she swore in the jury.". The judge then had each and every juror member state that they hadn't been sworn in, which refreshed the jury clerk's memory- thne she remembered she hadn't sworn in the jurors yesterday.

I didn't think it was a huge deal in our case, since we hadn't even gotten to opening statements. Word is though that an un-sworn jury had already heard evidence in a criminal trial downstairs. They'll probably face a mis-trial, but hopefully we can avoid that fate.

It's been over an hour since the judge left, and there is no end in sight- much less the start of the trial. Now everyone is starting to consider the possibility of the trial spreading to Friday, or even Monday.

***

And several hours later the possibility of the trial spreading beyond the first failed voir dire evaporated within a few hours of settlement negotiations that essentially took place in the court room.