What jurors will be selected in the trial of Roger Clemens?

If you were a high profile starting pitcher charged with perjury before Congress, or if you were an Assistant United States Attorney trying to convict a hall-of-fame pitcher with 7 Cy Young awards, what type of juror would you want to sit and hear your side of the case? As a prosecutor you certainly would have reviewed Clemens’ recorded statements to Congress to asses his credibility.  Here is Roger Clemens’ opening statement to Congress.  This is an example of his demeanor under pressure.

Monday jury selection moves forward and Judge Walton will prod attorneys to stop repeating questions and to get on with the business of selecting a jury.   Here is the Jury Questionanaire that all jurors in the case filled out prior to court.

Judge Walton is used to high-profile cases.  He presided over the trial of Scooter Libby, the vice-presidential aid who was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements.   As reported in Baseball Nation he ordered Scooter to prison for 30 months.  It took a President’s pardon to undo that judicial power.

Will Clemens suffer a similar fate?  Should he? Well, it first depends on the jury. The importance of Clemens’ jury’s composition should not be glossed over.  In the end it is the opinions of these few individuals that will matter: not Clemens, not the US Attorney, and respectfully not even Judge Walton’s opinion compares to the power of a jury.   It is a simple but hard fact that twelve (12) citizen jurors will decide the fate of Roger Clemens.

So, if you were involved as a prosecutor, what type of person would you want?  If you were Roger Clemens, what would you be looking for?  Lee Davis will give you some insight from a prosecutor’s perspective.  Bryan Hoss will step in Roger Clemens’ shoes and give you insight from the defense side. Prosecutors will want people with some of the following characteristics as jurors:

• Homeowners
• Business owners
• Workers who know what it is like to meet the obligations of every day life
• Responsible taxpayers
• People who have not declared bankruptcy
• People who have had children and taught them the value of education, hard work and not to take short cuts in life
• They will not fear having baseball fans–even Yankee fans–but they will be wary of those who they consider to be overly impressed with celebrity or fame.

Prosecutors will want to avoid the following jurors:

• Independently wealthy or financially dependent people
• People of the extremes in life whether that be politically left or right
• People who are unemployed or who have a history of misunderstandings with law enforcement and of course no criminal records
• Those who are attracted to media attention

Roger Clemens will want the following as jurors:

• Barry Bonds (who doesn’t live in the District)
• Alberto Contador (who is busy this month)
• Anyone who has used performance enhancing drugs
• Anyone who has no knowledge whatsoever about baseball or Roger Clemens
• Anyone critical of Congress who spends time on investigating baseball rather than dealing with the problems in our Country
• Liberal democrats
• Really conservative republicans
• School teachers
• Nascar fans
• Anyone who has had a negative experience with the criminal justice system or law enforcement

Roger Clemens will want to avoid the following jurors:

• Engineers/Scientists
• Anyone associated with Mother’s Against Drunk Driving
• Anyone married to, friends with or has any type of relationship with a law enforcement officer
• Anyone who is a fan of any major sport that includes a ball or a puck

We don’t believe you can fully predict what any single juror will do before he or she hears the proof but, like baseball, you can predict tendencies and preferences. The attorneys on both sides are experienced and will fully explore the attitudes of these jurors in full before they are seated to hear the evidence. Who they actually select will depend on the questions they ask and the answers they get.  But in the end, for any trial attorney, it comes down mostly to your gut feelings and predicting how someone you don’t know will vote after hearing the evidence. (Photo courtesy of Keith Allison from Flikr)