12 Angry Men: The Defense and Deliberation, Part 4

It has taken me 4 years to finish writing this story.

It has been 4 years since I sat on the jury of a murder trial as the foreman. It has been 4 years that I've thought about and regretted the "Not Guilty" verdict that we delivered as a jury. It has been 4 years that I realize I was traumatized by this experience and have been seeking for closure ever since. Tonight, after 4 years, I finally feel some peace.

Tonight a Federal Jury found Roman guilty of the murder of Josie Fox

So I thought it might be a fitting time to finally conclude my 4 part recounting of the trial. A lot of time has gone by, but there are some things you never forget. For those who have time, here's part 1, part 2, and part 3 of the story. This is the concluding piece.

A Short Recap
We had been in trial for 4 days, all of which consisted of the prosecution presenting a scrupulously detailed account of what happened the night of the murder of Josie Fox. Seemingly every aspect of the crime was covered- there was a drug deal on the street between Roman and another man, they sat smoking meth and talking about guns and bragging for a few minutes. There were cops observing them in a sting operation and were planning on intercepting them. After a few moments, Roman left and the officers contacted another officer to report the direction of travel to intercept the vehicle. The officer on duty was Josie Fox. She pulled over Roman in his Cadillac, walked up to the car, and was shot 2 times. Roman left the scene and 9 minutes later, when backup arrived on the scene, she was dead.

We heard so many testimonies that all corroborated the same story. We saw pictures and examined fingerprint charts. We studied the roads that were driven on, the minute by minute recount of the driving and distances, the details of the AK-47 assault riffle, the positively identified fingerprints of Roman all over the AK-47, the uniform of Josie fox with the bullet holes, the blood stains, the autopsy, the entrance path of the bullets, the recounting of his flight after the event and eventual capture, his recorded confession of the murder the following day. It seemed so clearly obvious that Roman was guilty that I almost stopped paying attention to all the details. I was swimming in topics I had never been exposed to and hearing experts with their detailed analysis- forensic reports, fingerprint experts, autopsy experts, etc. etc. It all seemed interesting but because it seemed to me there was no question to apply the information to, by the 4th day, I was just trying to figure out how there was even a question of his guilt at all. There was nothing left to question, it was clear that he was guilty, even by his own recorded confession.

Little did I know about the courtroom strategy of defense lawyers, how they don't have to reveal their cards until the last minute, and the prosecution just hopes they've nailed the case so tightly shut that there's no room for any doubt to escape. But there could be that one, forgotten detail, that leaves just enough space to squeak by another story that somehow, the defendant is innocent.

The Defense Speaks
During the entire trial, we never heard from either the defendant nor did the defense call any witnesses on their behalf- strange. The defense lawyer occasionally questioned the prosecution's many many witnesses and experts, but nothing that would come remotely close to making us question his guilt- it was about as tight of a prosecution as you could possibly get.

On the last day of the trial, after the prosecution closed their case, the defense, unexpectedly, called Roman to testify. It was shocking. When we were interviewing the notes about the case when we were being interviewed to be jurors, the only witnesses that were listed for the defense were a psychiatrist and one other. So my only thought was that the prosecution might try to plea insanity for him. Maybe that was a tactic? I think everyone was surprised that Roman was going to testify.

They put Roman in the witness box, with an interpreter, since apparently he didn't speak English. He was dressed in suit and tie. As jurors we couldn't see that he was handcuffed. As his lawyer led him, he began retelling the account- with one slight variation. Ryan Greathouse, Josie Fox's brother, the man whom he had done the drug deal with, did not drive off in his own car. Roman said that he stayed in the car with him and they drove off together. When the lights from the police vehicle came on behind them, he says that Ryan crouched down into the passenger side of the car with the gun. He then said when Josie was a couple of feet from the window that he sprung up and shot her. Ryan, the officer's brother is the one who shot Josie.

It was almost so entirely improbable that it was impossible. I studied Roman's face and the face of the lawyer. I had to know if they were telling the truth! I've never studied a face so hard in my life! I was waiting for some divine intervention to reveal to me who was lying. Someone was lying and it was my responsibility to decide who. And despite all of my instincts, my intuition was being held hostage and I was being told to make a decision based on impartial facts. My gut was not allowed in the courtroom.

Roman went on to say that right after Ryan shot Josie that he threatened Roman. He said that Ryan told him if he told anyone that he would kill his kids. So Roman said he was scared. He fled first North to Salt Lake, and then South to Beaver, not knowing what to do. He said that when he was caught, he decided to make up a confession to cover for Ryan so that his kids would be safe.

Smoke and Mirrors?
I still remember at one point in the testimony, his lawyer asked the question in English, then the interpreter would translate into Spanish, Roman would answer in Spanish and then the interpreter would translate into English. Toward the end of his testimony, the lawyer asked some question, and without thinking, Roman answered in English. Clear, fluent English. I remember because there were audible gasps in the courtroom, and people started to stare at us from the prosecution side with a hint of glee- like the covers had just been pulled off for a second. I remember feeling a sense of immediate betrayal as I realized that the entire translation scheme was staged and calculated to make us feel sympathy for poor Roman. I started to wonder what else was staged, and what was real. Had they been practicing this short testimony for years? Was it so calculated that Roman himself even had come to believe every detail? Did the defense lawyer even care about the truth of the case or the actual innocence of Roman? Or was winning everything?

After the little English slip, the defense lawyer quickly tried to move on, although the buzz in the room was audible and telling eyes kept glancing at us in the jury. They wanted to know if that slip would help us to believe what they did, that this whole story was staged. That it was an elaborate show of smoke and mirrors and they wondered if we, like they, had seen the magician slip.

And then it was over. The testimony lasted maybe 10 minutes. There were no other witnesses, nothing else. All the defense had to do was cast enough doubt to make it difficult for us to convict his client, and he knew that. The less talking the better. It was a brilliant strategy.

The prosecution was given some time to "rebuttal" from the testimony. We were dismissed for the day and I went home with my head reeling. I imagine there was furious scrambling on the part of the prosecuting team to find evidence that could disprove that someone could shoot from the angle of the passenger side crouched down with an AK 47. I'm sure there was no sleep to be had for that team of lawyers. You could tell they were caught as completely by surprise by the story as we were. They had obviously thought they had left no stone unturned. Perhaps they, like me, thought the defense would plea insanity and were preparing to rebuttal that. They had been tricked though. It's like they barely had time to wrap their minds around the bizarre twist in plot.

I don't remember much about the rebuttal, but I do remember wishing I hadn't checked out the last day of the trial, that I would have taken more tedious notes so that I could study the evidence and see if I could find a way that this new puzzle piece didn't fit.

I remember in their rebuttal that the prosecution team had gone to the crime lab in Salt Lake and tried to recreate the situation of Ryan, a larger guy, crouching down in the passenger area of the car with an AK-47. They argued, effectively in my mind, that there wouldn't be room to both crouch down and hold a gun and shoot at the angle they needed to match up with the shots that were in the officer's uniform and entrance and exit wounds on the body. But they also were missing some evidence, and weren't entirely able to deny the possibility beyond all doubt.

Apparently there were also some phone calls between Roman and Ryan immediately after the murder that I can only imagine would have had some very important information in them.  But we weren't allowed to have those records or conversations, as they were considered "heresay". I remember feeling at one point in the trial that there were such pains taken to make us blind to so many pieces of information that would have been helpful at discerning truth, but were deemed not necessarily factual evidence in the case, that I was handicapped to actually make a decision. I felt that we the jury knew the least of anyone in the world about the case. Anyone that had even seen 1 news story about the case knew things we didn't about the victim and the defendant and the surrounding circumstances that we didn't, but we were the ones making the vital decision! Why couldn't we know?!

Of course, I know that justice is supposed to be blind, and we are supposed to make decisions based solely on facts and evidence and nothing more. But there is so much more!! Like the fact that he was an illegal alien that had already been previously deported once, and had a criminal history of drugs and weapon possession. He wasn't a wholesome family man like they were trying to portray. He was a criminal. His children didn't even live with him and some of them he never even saw. He wasn't married and had children by several women.

Anyway, I became increasingly frustrated and deflated after the fact by what appeared to me to be the mounting relevant information I wasn't allowed to know, and the apparent drama production that was the defense and Roman's testimony. But at the time, all I had was strange account of the defendant that he didn't do it. And wondering, without knowing anything else about him or his background or history, (or in other words without the ability to discern anything else about him), if his testimony was true. I felt crippled. We also had almost no information on Ryan Greathouse, and no evidence of where he physically was after the drug deal.

To add to the difficulty of disproving Roman's story, Ryan Greathouse unfortunately died of a drug overdose a few months after Josie's death so much of what could have been used as testiomony against Roman was deemed inadmissible by the judge because he was deceased, including a letter Ryan wrote about that night and insisting he had nothing to do with Josie's death. Of course we didn't know this at the time. Again, we were blind. The jury was dismissed any time there was a disagreement about anything and we were prevented from knowing all of these "non-relevant" details.

Closing Statements
After the prosecutions' rebuttal and the defense questions, there were closing statements. We were clearly instructed that our job was to decide if Roman was guilty, "beyond reasonable doubt". That was the threshold. We were told we were not detectives, that we were simply to decide based on the facts presented. The prosecution's closing statement sounded much like the opening statement- that this was a cut and dry case. But I saw frustration and a loss of confidence in his eyes. Years of his work were unraveled with a 10 minute testimony. He wasn't sure if the defense's smoke and mirrors worked or if we were seeing through them. The defense lawyer's closing statement was simply that, considering the facts of the case, we were to determine if there could be any reasonable doubt that it wasn't Roman, that we were obligated to find him not guilty. He insisted he was a poor family man that was intimidated by a bully into covering his tracks, and that Ryan was in fact the one who shot his sister, and because the prosecution couldn't disprove it, we were obligated not to find him guilty. We were then dismissed to deliberate.

What I thought was so clear was suddenly not. I felt a ton of bricks on my shoulders.

The Deliberation
Once out of the courtroom, we were all given a copy of our instructions, led into the juror's room, and left to make our decision. This was the first time that we had been allowed to discuss the case at all. We had spent all of our time that week getting to know each other on a superficial level, so it almost seemed that we were just watching a murder mystery show together. But now, we felt the weight of responsibility on our shoulders. We were deciding the fate of a man and whether or not he murdered a cop. And let me tell you what, if anything is going to change relationship dynamics, it is the weight of a very heavy situation.

It's been 4 years but I still remember most of the characters of that jury. One young gun kid, skinny as a bean pole with a thick country accent that was just excited to be important enough to be on a jury at all. I could tell he was already thinking about the exaggerated stories he was going to tell his buddies about this experience- it would make for a great drinking story. He was a bandwagon jumper. Whatever bandwagon had the most momentum, he was on it. There were a couple of quite older people- a lady and a gentleman that didn't say  much but were content to go along with whatever the group said. There was a very persuasive BYU law student. There was a BYU english professor that was soft spoken but authoritative. There was a middle-aged housewife that was a sweet as honey, there was an ex-pro athlete and grown up class clown. A couple more people that I don't quite remember. And then there was me.

The first thing we had to do was decide on a foreman. People were talking in every which direction about all sorts of things, probably because we were all just excited we could talk at all. Everyone was offering their ideas but nobody really seemed to be stepping up to take control of the direction of the conversation and it seemed clear there needed to be some direction and method to the madness. There was SO much evidence and so much we could have postulated on, it was simply overwhelming. So after a few minutes, I volunteered to be the foreman and give some method to our discussion. Everyone agreed and so we started to try to organize our thoughts.

I suggested that the first thing we do was, without any discussion, write on a piece of paper whether or not we felt Roman was innocent or guilty. Perhaps we were already on the same page as it was, and it would be an easy decision. Little did I know.

I don't exactly remember what the first tally was when we did the first vote, but I think it was 8 guilty, and 2 not guilty.

Once we knew we weren't all on the same page, we decided to start discussions and each talk about why we felt what we did. The two not guilty votes were more than willing to identify themselves and I was very surprised. It was the BYU English professor and the BYU law student. Neither of them necessarily thought Roman was not guilty but they felt it was our job to debate the possibility that he could be innocent.

Ironically, as part of my MPA program we had watched and studied 12 Angry Men, when we were learning about group dynamics and leadership. It was unreal to me to watch how almost those exact same dynamics were playing out before me in this little room. It's definitely a fascinating study in human behavior to throw 10 strangers together and tell them they have to work together to solve a problem before they can leave the room, and watch the personalities emerge and change over time. Initially everyone was very respectful and tentative about their opinions. But over time the louder voices grew louder and the smaller voices grew more quiet. I felt it was my job, as best as possible, to give everyone equal opportunity to speak and defend their opinion to sway the group. But eventually the louder voices took over.

I thought that I would be able to keep the discussion organized, and persuade everyone to a unanimous vote fairly quickly. I thought that we would hear everyone's reasoning, take another tally, continue to talk until we had convinced the two "not guilty" voters to vote guilty and that our job would be done. But what unfolded was eerily similar to 12 Angry Men- the law student and the English teacher would not change their minds. They were totally unyeilding. The more the law student debated about "any doubt at all", the more people started having doubts. They had to admit that there was a possibility that Roman's story was true, or more accurately there was no actual evidence to disprove that Ryan was there, and therefore there was doubt. Was it a reasonable doubt? When all instinct said Roman was guilty?

In retrospect, I wish I could have said, yes the wild story that Roman told might have been possible. It could have been possible that she was hit by lightning at that moment too. Or that an alien came down and shot her. It might have been possible, but it certainly wasn't probable, and therefore in my mind, not reasonable. In my mind, it was so obvious he was still guilty! All the evidence, all the testimonies, his own confession- EVERYTHING pointed to him. 99.99% of all the facts pointed to Roman. It beyond reasonable doubt. His testimony was totally a wild story to me, and seemed all to convenient that there was nothing to support it. I know the other jurors also felt that Roman was most likely guilty, but they were persuaded by the reasoning of the law student. There was no evidence to disprove his story, and they felt that if there was any doubt at all, that it didn't meet the threshold of "beyond reasonable doubt".

When it became obvious to me that we weren't going to get anywhere with these two, I wrote a note to the judge asking what would happen if we couldn't come to a unanimous decision. I don't remember exactly the response but we were told that we had to come to a decision and that we wouldn't be able to leave until we could. So there were no options it seemed- we all had to agree or we'd grow old together in that room. (I found out later that there was another option to be a hung jury. I wish I would have known that at the time, for that's what we really were!)

It was getting late in the evening and we had been deliberating for hours. We were all tired and frustrated and the idea of having to stay locked in that room late into the night was not appealing to anyone. It was like Lord of the Flies- suddenly it was mattering less and less what the facts of the case were and more and more what we had to do just to get out of that dang room, and people were willing to do anything. It was getting savage. People didn't even care anymore about the case, let's just get out of here!

I remember thinking that we  had to take the higher road- it didn't matter if we had to stay all night, that there was a man's life on the line and we owed it to him to Josie's family to get things right. But slowly the peer pressure started to mount to do whatever we needed to go home and people started capitulating. I even suggested that we call it a day and reconvene in the morning and I remember one of the jurors saying, "my wife is expecting me home and I don't want to spend my weekend here, I have a dance recital I have to go to for my daughter and I'm not missing that! We have to make a verdict tonight!"

People were getting more and more frustrated. And the English teacher and law student continued to pick off casualties and persuading them to their side, that no one could be 100% certain. We kept doing straw polls and the results slowly started changing. 7- guilty, 3, not guilty. 6 guilty, 4 not guilty. Then 4 guilty, 6 not guilty. It seemed written in the cards, and with every new straw poll, the law student gained in confidence and continued to assure us that we were doing the right thing to not convict him because there was a possibility that his story was true.

I remember I had a headache. It had been a long day. The room was hot. The idea of capitulating and being able to leave that room and be done was so enticing. But I was willing to stay for the long haul. I didn't know at the time that it was a possibility to be a "hung" jury, or I would have done that. I remember feeling like it was some sort of emotional abuse to make us carry on like that without a break, and not the best circumstances to be making such an important decision. I needed a break and so did everyone else. But there didn't seem to be an option for that.

At some point, and I'm not sure how I can describe how it happened, but it almost no longer even mattered what the truth was in the case any more, people just wanted to be done. Everyone was emotionally and physically exhausted. And I no longer had the stamina to hold out against everyone else. I no longer had a choice. Everyone else had decided that they were willing to vote "not guilty" and I was the the last hold out for guilty. The. last. one. With 9 people desperate to be done and increasingly hostile toward dissent. 9 other people who had decided and were just waiting for me. 9 people who were comfortable delivering a "not guilty" decision because if you spent enough time and squinted hard enough, you could find a "reasonable doubt" that Roman had not done it. 9 against 1. How long could you hold out?

A unanimous decision had to be made (I thought) and I was the only one that wasn't falling into line. Talk about group psychology. I felt like I literally had no choice. I had no more stamina left to dissent or hold out. I was totally drained and exhausted, and knew there was no possibility of me being able to out-argue these two men and dissuade the entire jury. So I thought I had no other choice. The battle was lost.

I knew he was guilty. But there was no evidence to disprove his testimony. I wrote "not guilty" on the piece of paper.

Delivering the Verdict

We handed it to the officer to deliver to the judge. The judge called the court back together and we all reconvened that evening. It had been a long day of deliberation and people had been waiting out in the halls and around the courthouse all day for the decision. When we came back in the court room there was a crowd, including reporters. I was the one that was required to affirm the verdict of "not guilty". I've never felt more defeated in my life than when I said "not guilty", and heard the gasps and crying of the family of Josie Greathouse Fox in the courtroom. I saw the sunken countenance of the prosecuting lawyer who perhaps just lost one of the most important cases in his career. It was a devastating blow.

And then we were dismissed. Just like that. This man had just gotten away with murder.

I wanted to explain. I wanted so desperately to explain why- but it didn't matter, at all. It was over and I wasn't important anymore. The damage was done and it was over.

The Public Reaction

I remember walking out of the courthouse past reporters and family of Josie and the Roman family. I knew that I could have been on any television station that night if I went up to them and told them who I was. I wanted so badly to be able to explain to the family and the prosecution what happened and the whole debate we had about "reasonable doubt" and being worn down by to obnoxious, overly analytical jurors and how we all thought he was guilty and I was so sorry. But I didn't. I got in my car and just drove away.

And went back to my life where no one knew anything about the trial. I felt like I had just let down the whole world and that someone had literally just gotten away with murder because of me, and no one knew it. No one knew that I had just been given the power to sentence someone to life in prison and serve justice for a grieving family that lost their wife and mother, and that that power ultimately turned into a decision for expediency. No one knew the 12 Angry Men experience I just had. No one knew that I felt like I had just been bullied into violating my conscience.

The news headlines blared "Not Guilty" and the public was in shock. There was anger. There was disgust. There was outrage. There was no explanation of course, and even if there was it wouldn't have changed things. I guess the law student did talk to a reporter and said, almost braggingly after the fact "One of my lawschool classmates said I'm probably the most hated man in Utah right now. But the truth is the evidence couldn't disprove Roman's testimony". I bristled, feeling he used the situation to stoke his own ego and importance.

Every news story I read after piled up with the details that I had so desperately wanted to know before- about Roman's history of crime and drug charges, his deportation, pictures of him holding an AK 47 and bragging about how he wanted to kill a cop one day, etc. I felt I had been blinded. I felt I was the audience of a carefully crafted production and the hypnosis worked. The magician won. I felt like it was the OJ Simpson trial. And it weighed on my mind and my conscience heavily.

I stayed in touch with a couple of the jurors after. I feel like after you go through an experience like that with someone that you have sort of a strange bond. And I needed someone to talk to about it. I know now that I was traumatized, but I joked with one of them that the court should provide counseling for jurors after this kinds of cases for the PTSD we'd get. It wasn't really a joke.

But now, 4 years after regretting that verdict, and wishing I would have been stronger or knew there was any other option, I feel like I can finally rest my conscience. Today, Roman was convicted by a Federal jury of murder. And that means that Josie's family will finally get some closure as well.

Ultimately, our Maker is the final judge, and we will all pay for our sins, whether in this life or the next. But I'm certainly glad that my conscience has been cleared of the heavy burden I've been carrying for 4 years that I let someone get away with murder because of me. It took time, but finally, justice has been served.