The jury is under orders not to look at any form of local news media, and she knows we publish in blog format, so she has explicitly named various formats of publication including “blogs.” If any juror is seeing any story, let alone the comments, s/he is violating their vows as a juror. But unless any lives in West Seattle, they are not likely to just randomly bump into WSB – we don’t print a hard-copy product, so you’re not going to see a headline in a box on the street; we don’t have billboards; unless you deliberately seek us out, you won’t find us.
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And no, discussing it is NOT a media circus. If anything, this trial is desperately undercovered. I’m rather embarrassed (on behalf of my profession in general) that I have been the only reporter in court. Three other news organizations have written/produced one story each about it – one of those, without even *actually coming to the courthouse*. For so many reasons, IMHO, this deserves more coverage. But these are different times for my profession, and few will commit to something like this, unfortunately. /soapbox – TR

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I’m just trying to view this case with an open mind, and trying to determine if Mr. Hood was truly a victim, that did nothing to instigate or escalate this incident, or if Mr. Chambers genuinely and justifiably felt threatened, and was simply Standing his Ground….

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Mike

Anybody interested in what the jury was asked – there are the pixel equivalent of stacks and stacks and stacks of documentation from this trial, available for public download via King County ECR Online, and I know I saw documents slugged “jury questionnaire.” I downloaded the proposed jury instruction this afternoon to follow along as the lawyers started arguing the points, for example. With more than 2 years of history in this case and copious trial preparation, it is a huge, huge, huge archive. Some docs are so big they couldn’t be downloaded – for example, the defense had a 600-and-something page pretrial document I wanted to see, but ECR can’t handle it. These are the online files where the charges, the notes from hearings all along the way, etc., are all uploaded, usually within a few hours of being filed with the court. You have to set up an account to access ECR (and pay .15 per page even if you are not physically “printing” anything) but it’s open to the public – TR

Have you ever been through a jury voir dire? I think it is likely that potential jury members were actually asked ahead of time whether the accused’s status as a felon would affect their judgment on the case, and any jurors who said that they would find the accused guilty on that basis alone would have been excused.

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I went through a voir dire just yesterday, and CM is correct. Potential Jurors have to go in with a totally clear and open mind; unhampered by any preconceived opinions, any prejudice they may have if they have been the victim of a crime themselves, especially a similar crime.

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I was not selected for this Jury, simply because I was #43 out of #43 potential, and even though probably a good dozen or so were excused either due to hardship claims accepted by the Court, or one or the other Lawyer asked to have them excused.

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Anyway, out of consideration for the Trial and the Court, I’m not going to go into too much specific detail, under the presumption it hasn’t gotten to the point of deliberation and a decision, but, I will say that the Lawyers would ask potential Jurors if they were associated with any pro-gun, or anti-gun organizations. Some were pressed further, asked if they would be able to hear the Case with a totally open mind, and without bias either way, depending on their answer to that question, the same thing was asked to those who said they had been crime victims themselves.

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Potential Jurors were asked if they had strong feelings either way about the Police, and if they had any bias against, or were hugely supportive of Police in general, would they be able to set those feelings aside and not let them influence their opinion.

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At one point, the Judge had to make an admonishment, reminding that the Defendant was innocent at this point, and as the Judge had mentioned at the beginning, that the State had the burden. The Defendant has no burden, the Defendant is not required to take the stand, the Defendant is not required to put anyone else on the stand.

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We have the luxury here, in regards to this fascinating case, and with WSB’s thorough coverage, to come to our own conclusions, to discuss and debate. If we chose, we could go to the scene of the incident, and explore it. We can go back and look at the News Reports from the time of the incident. We can look up statistics related to similar incidents. The Jurors sitting in on this case don’t have that luxury; they are to steer clear of any outside influence, that could influence them on the decision of innocence or guilt. This goes beyond the stock admonishment we’ve seen on TV, going all the way back to Perry Mason, where Jurors were told not to read the News papers, or to walk away if they start to hear the case discussed on TV/radio, or in person.

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Again, this is not a Jury here in this comment section, but I do have to say, from my experience yesterday and from the discussion that has gone on here, ScubaFrog would definitely be excused, and my guess is that Community Member would quite likely get picked, provided CM was not so far up in the Jury Pool like I was yesterday. I have a hunch that if I would have been within that first 25-ish, or whatever it was, I probably would have been chosen, as I didn’t express any strong feelings one way or the other, and raised my (number) card maybe only a couple of times when the general questions were being asked.

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Mike

The night Chambers was arrested, he didn’t know what happened as he was remarkably intoxicated. Now he’s got a “self defense” story that contradicts every witness account. Chambers followed these young men to their truck, fired 3 shots killing Hood, and that’s that. He’s a murderer, and I’m convinced the jury will convict him as such.

“…lengthy deliberation or even a hung jury.” Good heavens.