Chapter 5 - Let's Get Going (or maybe not)

 

"He could have backed off, Jesse was on the ground. Nelson could have backed off, he had backup coming. He was the aggressor. HE reached down and grabbed Jesse."

Juror #5

 

Juror #5 stated this fact as we went around the room in our initial hour of deliberations. She was absolutely right, and we would see that very clearly on the first day of the actual trial.

It was Thursday, May 16th, and I woke up bright and early to be at court by 8:30 a.m. After all the weeks and months of jury selection leading up to this day, I was anxious for the actual trial to begin. As I have mentioned before, I had no prior knowledge of this case. I had never seen any news about it back in 2019 when the incident occurred, and I hadn’t heard anything about it since—until that morning of the first day of the trial.

That morning, I went downstairs to have breakfast with the rest of my family, and the local news was on. At the urging of Judge Phelps, I had been trying to avoid turning on local television for the past several weeks to avoid seeing anything about the case, but I couldn’t impose that restriction on the rest of my family. Like most people, my wife especially likes to check the weather report before heading out the door, so she had KING5 news on in the family room while she was packing her lunch for the day. I walked downstairs to make breakfast and didn’t give the TV a second thought. As I began cracking a few eggs into a bowl to whisk them, I heard from the TV, "The trial of Officer Jeffrey Nelson begins today..."

"Oh no!" I nervously exclaimed to my wife. "I can't see this!" I quickly ran to the remote, which was about 10 feet away, and turned off the television. I thought to myself, "Phew, all I heard was his name; I should be okay." Even so, Judge Phelps had previously stated that if we saw any news coverage at all, she wanted to be informed. With that instruction at the forefront of my mind, I hurried upstairs to my computer and sent the bailiff the following email:

Good morning,

Based on Judge Phelps' direction, I want to inform the court about a brief exposure I had to some news coverage about this case. 

This morning I had King 5 news on in the background, and as they were running down their top 5 stories of the morning they started to mention the case. I ran (honestly, ran) to the remote and turned it off. All I heard was something to the effect of, "the trial of an Auburn police officer will begin today. Jeffery Nelson is..." that is where I was able to get the TV turned off.

Going forward, I won't even turn on broadcast TV, I will just watch streaming services, and get the weather and sports coverage I like via the internet.

Respectfully,

Daniel Benjamin 

 

As I made the 30-minute drive to court, I wondered what the judge would say about my email. More than that, I really wondered what I would hear in the case today. 

I arrived at court early, around 8 a.m. We had been instructed to always first go to the large jury assembly room on the second floor and wait to be brought upstairs by the bailiff. I found Juror #5, a woman who looked to be in her 70s, already there, sitting outside the assembly room as it had not yet been opened. Slowly but surely, the rest of us started arriving. By 8:30 a.m., most of us were in the lobby outside the assembly room. A group of us chatted and introduced ourselves. Some of the jurors stayed to themselves and did not participate in the conversation. We talked about nothing in particular, mostly about the traffic getting to court and how a big accident on I-405 might have impacted some jurors' arrival times.

At 8:30, the door to the jury room was unlocked, and we made our way in. Several of us continued to make small talk in the jury room.

At precisely 8:45 a.m., the bailiff entered the assembly room and called for Judge Phelps' jurors. I did a quick count and noticed that, of the 16 people who should have been there, only 14 had arrived. The bailiff immediately began going through her list of jurors and worked to get in touch with Juror #11. A few minutes later, Juror #11 arrived, apologizing profusely for being late. She explained that she had been racing from West Seattle after dropping her kids off at school and promised that this would be a one-time occurrence and that she would not be late again.

I counted around the room and saw that we were still missing one person. There were only 15 people present. In any case, the bailiff led the 15 of us up to the jury room right behind Judge Phelps' courtroom. As we walked in, I noticed a paper on the table with the jury positions and names. I said to the group, "Hey, look at this. This is who we are." Everyone paused to take a quick look at the sheet. I then exclaimed, "Oh, and there is no name in the Juror #5 box. I guess we lost one between Tuesday and today. We are down to just 3 alternates." Some discussion ensued, and then the room quieted as everyone went about their own business. Some worked on their computers, a few listened to music, and several read books.

About 15 minutes later, there was a knock at the door. A buzz of anticipation went through the room as we all assumed the bailiff was there to bring us into the courtroom to hear the opening arguments. However, instead of calling everyone, the bailiff asked only Juror #15 to come into the courtroom with her. The rest of the jurors exchanged glances and shrugged, wondering what was going on.

Juror #15 was the Black woman who worked with the homeless on a daily basis. I was surprised she had not been struck by the defense, as the few things I heard from her during voir dire suggested she might be a bit biased toward the prosecution. As she left, the room quieted again, and everyone returned to their previous activities.

We waited like that for about 45 minutes, which felt like an eternity in that cramped room. Finally, there was another knock at the door, and Juror #15 returned with the bailiff. She walked in with a sly, knowing grin, collected her belongings, and said, “It was nice meeting all of you. Have a nice life.” Then she left. We looked around at one another, and you could pick a few of our mouths up off the floor. I said to everyone, “well…and then there were 14.” We all wondered what had happened, but I quietly suspected it might be related to her work with the homeless and that a conflict of interest had been identified over the past couple of days.

By now, it was now close to 10:30am, and that meant that there would be an obligatory morning break for the courtroom. As a result, we waited another 30 minutes before finally heading into the courtroom for the first time as an impaneled jury to start hearing the case.

After the long morning of waiting, around 11 a.m., there was finally a knock at the door. The bailiff asked us to line up by our juror positions in the hallway behind the courtroom. Once we were in place, she opened the door to the courtroom and announced loudly, “Please rise for the jury.”

I was amazed as we walked into the courtroom for the actual trial.  The room was PACKED; every single seat was filled. There was a guy off on the other side of the judge’s bench that was taking pictures with a still camera , and a TV camera was positioned at the back of the room. While I didn’t recognize many people there, it was clear that multiple reporters from various news outlets were present. I thought to myself, “This is nuts.”

After everyone was seated, Angelo Calfo for the prosecution launched right into the opening statement. With all the hurry-up-and-wait that we had endured for the past several months, I thought that it would be great to finally get things going, but it was very quickly not great. I listened intently as the prosecution began to lay out the case against Officer Jeffrey Nelson. For the first time, I learned that Officer Nelson had contacted a suspect named Jesse Sarey and, over the course of a few interactions, ultimately shot Jesse Sarey in the torso and then in the head. I was shaken by what I heard. Hearing the prosecution describe the events was already convincing, but then they showed the video of the entire encounter. It was incredibly distressing to see; I was viscerally disturbed watching Officer Nelson shoot the unarmed Jesse Sarey.

Seeing the first shot was distressing, but watching Officer Nelson take the second shot to Jesse’s head in real time was what made me jump and start to tear up. I was angry and shaken by it, and I thought to myself, “Oh… he’s guilty.”

As Mr. Calfo continued with his opening statement, I could tell he was also fighting back tears. His voice was a bit shaky, and that shakiness was quite effective at provoking emotion in me. I was deeply jarred, and my mind was all over the place as he spoke. It was so disturbing that I might have started only half-listening; my mind was drifting. In the midst of his opening statement, I thought I heard him say that the first shot killed Jesse and that the first shot was the basis for the second-degree murder charge. I was confused when Mr. Calfo then stated that the second shot to the head was the basis for the assault charge. “Wait,” I thought, “did I hear that right?” The entire encounter was disturbing, but the second shot to Jesse’s head was the most disturbing to me. If I heard that correctly, and the shot to the head was the lesser charge, I knew this case was going to get very complicated.

When Mr. Calfo finished his opening statement, my head was spinning with emotions. I felt sadness for Jesse and his loved ones, anger, and anxiety about what else I might see and hear throughout the trial. I was also wondering what the other side of the story was and what I might be missing.

It was now the defense’s turn to give their opening statement. Before Ms. Emma Scanlan could begin, Judge Phelps had us jurors step out into the hallway while they discussed something. As we stood waiting, Juror #3 became chatty and started talking about the video and how shocking it was. His comments began fairly innocuously and he didn’t share any opinions at first, but as he continued, I started to feel he was veering into dangerous territory by saying too much. I quickly intervened and said, “Hey, we should be careful here. We probably shouldn’t discuss this any further.” Several other jurors nodded in agreement, and Juror #6 also chimed in to support my suggestion.

Everyone quieted down at that point, and after a few minutes, the bailiff led us back into the courtroom.

We took our seats, and Ms. Scanlan delivered the defense’s opening statement. Her statement was enlightening, and I began to learn there was quite a bit more to the story of how Officer Nelson ultimately ended up firing two bullets into Jesse Sarey. Ms. Scanlan’s opening seemed a bit shorter than the prosecution’s, but she succinctly outlined the defense’s case. She introduced the notion that Officer Nelson was simply defending himself from an imminent threat and that we would hear from a witness who believed Jesse Sarey was trying to take Officer Nelson’s gun.

During her opening statement, I was surprised to hear her state emphatically that we would hear from Officer Nelson himself. This was surprising because, during voir dire, we had been questioned about whether we could remain open-minded if the defendant did not testify. As Ms. Scanlan finished her opening statement, I thought to myself, “They have work to do, but if the second shot is not the basis for the second-degree murder charge, I might already have doubts about the first shot and how that tragically happened.”

She finished her opening statement, and Judge Phelps sent us off to lunch. I went to the large jury holding room and had the lunch I had brought with me. Some jurors went out for lunch, but a few others stayed behind with me. I caught up on work I had missed during the opening statements and also chatted with Juror #5 for a while. As it got closer to 1 p.m., more of the 14 jurors arrived back, and we started talking about where some of us worked. I learned that Juror #14 works in logistics for airline repairs and that Juror #16 is a software developer with a wife and a young child.

At 1:15 p.m., the bailiff came to get us, and we headed back upstairs. In the afternoon, the prosecution’s testimony began with a video expert. Throughout the afternoon, he walked us through video after video, delving into the tiniest nuances about the limitations of what could be seen in the footage. It was incredibly boring. For the entire afternoon, we parsed through video, and I thought to myself, “Maybe they wanted me on this jury because I sell video for a living and thought this would be meaningful to me.” I knew the video evidence was important, but even for me, as a video nerd, it was very hard to follow. After a couple of hours of mind-numbing testimony, the judge dismissed court for the day, and we were told to return on Monday morning at 8:30 a.m.