Since the first day of court, one attorney – the tall skinny blonde contingent who wore short tight fitting black skirts and sat with her legs crossed in the exact place where the witness would rest their eyes between questions and within easy view of us jurors as well – had made it a practice to stare at us. Her normal seated position would have been with her back toward us. But every now and then, she’d swivel her chair and just stare. For minutes on end. It wasn’t as if she was just checking us out after a certain comment from a witness. She was surely not daydreaming at the wall behind us; her face was too serious for that. She was staring right at us. When I looked at her eyes, she seemed to be looking at the juror to my left and she would never look back at me. She also didn’t take that as a hint to stop staring either. She was about 5 feet from me and I could see her out of my periphery even when I was turned the farthest away from her.

I ignored her at first, thinking anyone can look at anyone else. Then I tried staring back at her but I didn’t have the guts to try more than a few times and I really did want to listen to the court proceedings. Finally, in week three, her staring put me over the edge. I went home that day determined to say something. I almost did it solo but then thought if I submitted a comment to the judge and he read it, there might be 8 faces with expressions of “huh?” aimed at me. So I mentioned it to the others. “Yes! It’s uncomfortable.” Another juror summed it up with, “She’s one scary woman.” We discussed how to handle it – a written note to the judge that he might or would be required to read out loud into the court record? No, let’s talk to the court deputy and see what she suggests.

I mentioned it to her and she said she’d take care of it and that if she needed it in writing, she’d let me know.

Whatever she did, it worked. She didn’t stare. Several jurors thanked me at the first break for raising this issue. But by the second session, we noticed the male attorney sitting next to her now started staring. “They’re trying to read our minds,” one juror joked. I laughed, “If they were so good at reading my mind, they would’ve realized this started working against them a long time ago and they would’ve started answering the questions that are coming up for me.” And really, I know that my mind is full of all sorts of thoughts for and against both sides and lots of questions in between so if they think they can tell how I’m going to vote from the outside when all this is going on in the inside, well, they should bottle that and sell it and get out of law. They’d make a whole lot more money.

I thought if she wanted to stare, she should’ve taken a seat on the other side of the table. But that would’ve meant she would’ve had to give up her bare leg position with the witnesses and with us. She didn’t move.

I have to believe that whole team of attorneys knew what was going on. She never got up and questioned any witness. Was she only there for looks? How disappointing. I know this is somewhat unfair. I did see her reviewing documents during the trial and providing feedback to her team. But overall, she set a lame example.

Did they do that because it does work for some juries or witnesses? That’s truly disappointing.