Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [109]
As jury selection began, Susan seemed in control of her defense. Her questions were measured and appropriate, although in some instances she revealed too much about the specifics of her case and was admonished by the judge to restrict her comments. Soft-spoken and articulate, Susan’s demeanor was more of a schoolteacher than a murder defendant. She showed up for court each morning in well-tailored outfits, gold-rimmed designer glasses—and a uniformed court officer on each arm. Though she appeared self-assured at the start, it wasn’t long before it became clear that she was very nervous about her case and somewhat uncertain about how to proceed.
Late in the afternoon, Susan erupted into tears after a potential juror voiced alarm over the possible length of the trial, estimated at over two months, and Susan’s decision to serve as her own attorney—or to go pro per.
“I feel this is my one chance,” Susan defended, wiping tears from her cheeks. “I’m taking a calculated risk, and I realize all of you have things you’d rather do.”
In the courtroom, Susan was timid one minute and more like an articulate, thoughtful law student the next. She could be confident, emphatically arguing legal points with the judge and citing information from a law book. Other times, however, she was apologetic and ill at ease. She grew visibly upset one afternoon when she misplaced one of her documents. After Susan spent several anxious minutes rifling through the stack of papers on the defense table, she finally gave up in exasperation and carried on from memory.
By the end of the second day, Susan had dismissed eight prospective jurors while the prosecutor had dismissed six through the preemptory challenge process. Susan’s questioning made it clear that she was most anxious to have a juror who could be objective in adjudicating a case in which a defendant was acting as her own attorney.
While questioning one prospective juror, a building inspector, Susan crafted an analogy, asking him how he would react if he went to someone’s house and found that the homeowner had fixed his own toilet and done his own construction and wiring, while following the appropriate rules.
The man said that wouldn’t trouble him.
“And so, here in the courtroom, if I follow the rules, although I sometimes might make mistakes, would it annoy you that I’m doing it myself?”
“No. It wouldn’t annoy me,” he said.
Despite his positive responses, Susan would later strike the building inspector from the jury because of his friendships with a local judge and members of law enforcement. She excused another potential juror after the woman told Judge Brady that she thought Susan “was a fool” for choosing to go pro per. And she let a third man go after he joked about her decision to represent herself.
“It’s like a game of wrestling, where a flyweight is with a heavyweight,” the retired draftsman chuckled. “If I bet on it, I bet with the heavyweight.”
While Susan took the courtroom proceedings seriously, she invoked a little humor when one prospective panelist raised concerns over how Susan intended to cross-examine her sons and take the stand on her own behalf. With a giggle, Susan recounted a scene from a Jim Carrey comedy in which the actor played a defendant who was representing himself, leaping from the podium to the stand as he conducted his cross-examination.
“I’ll actually have notes and questions for myself and an outline leading me through what I need to tell you,” Susan told the woman, a registered nurse, who was later selected to serve on Polk’s jury.
By late Monday, March 6, Susan and Paul Sequeria announced their agreement on a panel of six men and six women, among them a woman who had served in the U.S. military, a retired female U.S. Parcel Service worker, and a sales manager for the local plumber’s union who shared one attribute with Susan—a young son. The jury selection process had taken a full five days.
Judge Brady could have started the case with opening remarks that same afternoon, but at the request of the prosecutor, she agreed to begin