The first few hours of deliberation were one big spew – We had seen and heard things over the past days that had made big impressions, but we had not been able to talk to each other about them.
We covered a white board with a list of questions, many having to do with the order in which events had occurred. Because the time-line was not actually a piece of evidence, we were not allowed to have it in the deliberations. Soon most questions were answered by other jurors, and we had a whole list of new ones.
But it was time to go home and lie awake feeling the import of the decisions we were making. I felt a great flood of compassion for the defendant and for his family, and yet at the same time I knew that justice demanded that he experience the consequences of his actions. It was a humbling experience, a glimpse of what judges and perhaps even the old-testament deity may have felt in similar circumstances....
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