Psst.

The U.S. Supreme Court is very serious about keeping courtrooms open to the public even during jury selection.

It's been two years since the Presley vs. Georgia case and the word hasn't apparently filtered down to the Ventura County Hall of Justice.

Twice, I have been told by  courtroom bailiffs that I couldn't stay for jury selection because all the courtroom seats would be taken up by  jury panels.    

Today, was the second time it happened within the last three months.

(The judges and lawyers, not the bailiffs, should be the ones who make sure the Supreme Court ruling is followed.)

What I am surprised at is that neither defense attorneys nor defendants are aware of the high court ruling because denying the public the right to attend the jury selection process will probably get a criminal conviction tossed out.

 Here is some information from an earlier column I wrote on my blog about Presley vs. Georgia.

This is what happened in Georgia in 2007: A judge threw out the uncle of a defendant during selection, saying her courtroom was too small to accommodate both potential jurors and the public.

The judge said:

" 'Well, the uncle can certainly come back in once the trial starts. There's no, really no need for the uncle to be present during jury selection... . [W]e have 42 jurors coming up. Each of those rows will be occupied by jurors. And his uncle cannot sit and intermingle with members of the jury panel. But, when the trial starts, the opening statements and other matters, he can certainly come back into the courtroom.' " 

The defendant, Eric Presley who was convicted of trafficking in cocaine, appealed, citing his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial.

In 2010, the United States Supreme in the case of Presley vs. Georgia agreed with the defendant and overturned Presley's conviction, noting that the public trial right is founded in both the Sixth and First Amendment.

The Supreme Court said in its ruling:

"Trial courts are obligated to take every reasonable measure to accommodate public attendance at criminal trials. Nothing in the record shows that the trial court could not have accommodated the public at Presley's trial. Without knowing the precise circumstances, some possibilities include reserving one or more rows for the public; dividing the jury venire panel to reduce courtroom congestion; or instructing prospective jurors not to engage or interact with audience members."

To review the entire Presley vs. Georgia case courtesy of Cornell University School of Law go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/09-5270.ZPC.html

             In addition,  the U.S. Supreme Court's 1980 case Richmond Newspaper vs. Virginia, the justices stated that trials must be open to public access unless there is a compelling reason in closing them, and only after a hearing concludes that no other means exist to protect the defendant's right to a fair trial.

In that court case, then Chief Justice Burger noted that "where a trial has been concealed from public view, the unexpected outcome can cause a reaction that the system at best has failed and at worst has been corrupted."

The Supreme Court found four benefits to open trials: public confidence is enhanced in the judicial system; the public serves as a watchdog against abuses; public trials promote the truth finding process and helps achieve a community catharsis following a serious crime.

When the jury summons arrived in the mail, Dave would see it as an opportunity to go to the Ventura County Hall of Justice, sit somewhere on the courthouse grounds and read a good book.

Then, Dave, who asked that his real name not be used, was selected to serve on a murder trial involving three defendants, Brian Starks, Corey Lamar Johnson, and Terrance "Terry" Morrow.

The three were accused of killing 49-year-old Michael Wade, of Northern California and wounding Kenneth Pecaro, a San Bernardino parolee, during a drug deal gone bad on Nov. 9, 2009.

This trial's cast of seedy characters included parolees, former and current prison inmates, big-time drug dealers and small time pushers. And attorneys who called the other side's witnesses liars.

One side was armed with a rifle and two guns; the other side had no weapons, according to the prosecution. The shooting took place 75 yards from an elementary school. Wade died in an alley in the 1400 block of South E Street in Oxnard. Starks shot him twice in the back with hollow-point bullets, ammunition that is designed to cause a lot of damage to the human body.

The trial started on April 9.

During opening statements, the prosecutor told jurors that the defendants were going to rob Wade and Pecaro. Defense lawyers said it was simply a drug deal gone bad, and there was no money. Therefore, it couldn't have been a robbery.

The first week of May, jurors began deliberations after all the testimony and evidence -- including DNA and a video of a convenience store parking lot where Starks met with the victims on the day of the shooting -- ended.

It got more serious for Dave.

Fellow jurors picked him as jury foreman whose job it was to keep the deliberations going, help sort through all the pieces of evidence including crime scene photographs and allow the smooth and steady recollection of testimony by jurors.

There were countless hours and thousands of words said on the witness stand.

But first, Dave said jurors had to wade through 80-pages of jury instructions that had been read by Judge Charles Campbell. That was done before the prosecutor and defense attorneys could present hours of closing arguments.

He recalled going into the jury room, jurors finally selecting him as the foreman, and then having to wait to get copies of the jury instructions.

"They were still working on them," he said.

 Dave, however, said this short waiting time was well spent by jurors sorting out some of the evidence.

Dave said he was very impressed Judge Campbell, saying that he was fair to both sides.

"I was very impressed by him and the bailiffs," he said. "It was a good courtroom experience."

Dave said the most compelling evidence was not one thing but was how the prosecutor Maeve Fox and the investigators linked all the evidence together.

What sticks out in his mind was the 20-minute audio recording of Wade who had been fatally wounded and was played at the start of the trial. In the background of the recording, a dog barked almost incessantly and a police officer asked the dying Wade questions and gave commands and encouraged him to keep breathing.

"That was kind of eerie because we already knew that he had died and to hear him suffering," said Dave.

The Oxnard police officer who arrived at the crime scene and is heard asking the mortally wounded Wade questions, left an impression on Dave. The officer was "calm and focus" while trying to keep Wade alive amid the chaos, Dave said.

The autopsy photographs that often tend to linger in the minds of people who serve on juries involving homicides didn't have much of an impact on Dave. He said the autopsy photographs weren't graphic.

On May 4 and after four days of deliberating, jurors said they had verdicts on some of the felony counts and were deadlocked on others.

Starks was the only defendant found guilty of murder with great bodily injury.  Starks also had a gun during the murder and was a felon in possession of a gun, jurors said.

The jurors were deadlocked on the conspiracy charge against Johnson and Morrow, and therefore, they couldn't convict the defendants of murder during the commission of a robbery.

Morrow was found guilty of assault with a firearm because he wounded Pecaro in the hand; Jurors deadlocked on the murder and other felony charges against Johnson.  

Dave said he no longer sees a jury summons the same way,a ticket to go sit on courthouse grounds and read a good book.

"I think a lot of people don't want to do jury duty," he said. "Now that I have been involved I have a great appreciation for the process. I have no hesitation in doing it again.

And yeah, Dave emphasized that this was a very serious case. But that's what jurors promised to do when they raised their hands to sit in a case where another human being lost his life, he said.

"We took it seriously, very seriously. We swore that we would do that, and so we had a job to do," Dave said.