April 17, 2026 • 41 mins
It was a pretty big week for me as I got called to be on a jury for the first time. I talk with my friend Peyton Hylok about that experience and what I learned from it.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
It is the Emory Songer Podcast on what is Friday,
April seventeen. Thank you for listening. Uh, this is a
really good day because it's the end of a work week.
I got a big weekend coming up and talk about
that in a second. Get a chance to actually sit
here and talk to my old producer, my old partner
in crime, my guy Peyton high Lock.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
What's going on? Emory?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hey, what's up?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Dude?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
How's how's life treating? I don't get to see you
the same amount of like used to see you. I
used to sit in the room and talk to you
for four hours right day.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It's an interesting change now, you know. I'm in the
building a lot more doing the show in the morning
show in the afternoon. But I will say I'm enjoying it.
I'm enjoying it. A lot of good things going on
right now.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
What's the uh, what's the vibe on the morning show?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Like?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
How you enjoying that?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
The morning show is good? Taking a lot of phone calls?
A bit different than the It's different, you know because
normally the host comes in, you know, like you would
come into your show and that like you do your
IOWA show and you would have your show prepped, you know,
kind of these major things that you want to talk about.
You leave a little bit of space for some news stories,
(01:20):
but you know, Gene comes in and it's really dependent
on what the caller wants, what the emailer wants.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It's kind of cool, though a very different type of show.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I enjoyed a lot. I have no idea what we're
going to talk about. Maybe there's a little bit of overlap.
You know, we were talking about the crazy knife lady
at Walmart the last few days.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Okay, starting interrupt. What was like, like, I'm not on
Omaha every single day, on Omaha Radio every single day anymore.
What was the reaction when that story came out? Because
you would have been with Chris Baker that afternoon right.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
This news broke while Jean Stouthert and I were on
the air. Oh okay, so we had to We actually
had a Kathleen Cowch Senator was in an interview with
Gene about ten twenty and we basically had to cut
her off. She was talking about a transgender bill legislation,
and we had to cut that short. Wow and timing right,
(02:20):
and we had to cut to live coverage, and everybody
was kind of like, what in the world is going on?
Nobody had any understanding. We didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
So so how did that work? Did Was it the
newsroom that just kind of took it from there?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, so Terry Lahy, who's in our newsroom, you're pretty
familiar with Terry. He was headed in to the to
the building, to the studio and Scott called him and said,
just go, just go straight to the scene. So we
had Terry Lahy on scene from the KFAB newsroom on
scene and he was calling in into the show to
give us live updates. You couldn't have planned it any
(02:57):
better than that. I mean, it worked out perfectly. He
was on the scene and getting it as soon as possible.
We cut to a couple local news stations for the
press interviews and stuff. But anytime that a kid, I
mean the real danger is that this kid was sliced,
I mean stabbing, a cutting, whatever. But it was a
(03:17):
big slice along the kind of cheekbone temple area on
the side of the head. You hear that, you're immediately concerned.
And then as the few days passed, we found out that.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
This woman was insane.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Insane. Yeah, you know when I took a psychology class
in high school. The message was, don't ever call anybody
crazy without calling her crazy. She was about as close
to that as you can get. But she was definitely insane.
Definitely insane, schizophrenic, I think is what we found out
it to be.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Why is a person like that who already, like two
years ago we found out I'm sure Chris talked about
this as well. She had been gotten in trouble for
like setting a house on fire and trying to kill
her father.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah. Yeah, she doused her father in gasoline, lighter, fluid,
gasoline something, yeah, flammable liquid.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And then just like set it on fire and then
ran and hid to church. Yeah, and she was like
just wandering around free.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Well, we got to have a better system.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
She was held for nineteen days, though Amory nineteen days
after that happened, she was held nineteen days and then
she was released boh nineteen days of safety before the
danger returned.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I'm sure, I'm sure. I'm sure that made us all
feel a lot better. We have to have a better system, dude.
The court system has to be better when it comes
to individuals like that. I know that we know have
these protocols and these rules, and people have their rights
and everything, but somebody who is literally not punished because
of reason for insanity should not just be then turned
(04:51):
out to the rest of society to inflict whatever craziness
she wants to inflict. And apparently, like I was reading,
she had been doing some sort of classes or something
to try to help her. I guess, but I think
we can go ahead and say that didn't necessarily work
super well. And I'm happy for the police officers to
(05:13):
be on scene as fast as they were. It sounded
like they were in the area because they were there
so fast. She took she stole a kitchen knife, put
it in the back basically of a mother, and told
her to walk. And you know, people are calling nine
one one and all this stuff like this happened in Omaha.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Right, yeah, you know, and not even too far away
from where we're at now.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
No, not even I don't live far away from where
that happened. It just tells you that it doesn't matter
where the Walmart is, the people of Walmart will find it.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
It's but I don't I don't know if you feel
this way, but I've always kind of deemed that Walmart
as a little bit dangerous. I choose to avoid it.
I'd rather go to the Aldi down the street, just
a little bit more north.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, but you're not gonna be able to buy tires
at Aldi.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
No, you're right. I also wouldn't steal a kitchen knife
from Aldie. I don't even know if they sell those, but.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I mean, I don't know. I'm glad the kid's okay.
It's easier for us to talk about this with the
kid being okay. But man, the court system, there's got
to be another answer. There's got to be another way.
And everybody wants to be like mental health is mental
health that It's like, okay, so what do we do?
You know, like there is It's not that easiest to
(06:27):
be like, well she was crazy. It's like, okay, well
so your answer is to just like let her go
and just we don't have an institution that she can
just kind of like live at as she works through
whatever her mental issues are. She was trying to inflict
legitimate harm to a toddler. I mean, who does that?
(06:50):
A strange toddler too? There was no this was completely random.
She didn't know who these people were.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, that's the crazy thing about it is it was unprompted,
there was no premeditation involved, completely random, completely random, and
she was wearing pajama pants. That's I don't know. You
could maybe this is it. If this is you and
you feel offended by it, maybe just do a little
(07:17):
deep dive and reflect a little bit. But people that
wear plaid pajama pants out of the house, there's a
little bit of questioning that needs to be done. Anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I hope that this does not land like we're making
light of this crime, because we're not. But you can
tell a lot about a person by their willingness to
wear pajama pants outside the home.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And there was commentary saying that the officers shouldn't have
used lethal force. Just just get your taser out. Just taser. Yeah, yeah,
there's a knife at his head.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Guys, people who make those arguments you just cannot take
them seriously because they obviously have no idea what's going on,
and they have absolutely like I would. I wish there
was like a simulation where we could do a simulation
of Okay, so what is the situation when you all
of a sudden are the victim and you have a
crazy person with like a weapon, or they're trying to
(08:11):
hurt you, or they have you in like a gunpoint,
And would you still feel the same way, would you
tell the officers just taste them, just just to try
to not use complete lethal force. It's like, man, it
just does not work that way. You cannot reason with
some of these people. And you know, what what if
it what if the taser malfunction doesn't work the same way,
(08:31):
that can may not be with us today.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
You know, the movie solely no, it's about that plane, oh,
solely the pilot solely, right, you know, it's a it's
a movie about the event. And some would argue that it's.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
A little bit Tom Hanks, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
It's it's not quite the same in the movie as
what happened in your life. But in the movie, they
they're they're in court and they're doing these simulations because
they were in court because the I don't know, the
airport or whatever said that they could have made it
to an airstrip safely instead of landing in the Hudson River.
And so in trial they had all these simulations of
(09:09):
bird strike, bird strike, bird strike, and the plane would
immediately turn and divert right away. And they kept landing,
and solely, who's being played by Tom Hanks, kept saying, Okay, well,
where where's your element of real life? Oh no, what
just happened? You know, in these simulations, it's not the
same as in real life. You have adrenaline pumping through
your body, or you're scared, you're unsure, you don't know
(09:29):
what to do, but it's an immediate decision, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, it's like this pilot just did this because you
wanted to be a hero.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Come on, Yeah, he wanted to land in a river,
freezing river because he wanted a cape.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, come on, what are we doing here anyway? I
haven't seen that. I need to see that. The story
when it happened was pretty crazy too. I did my
civic duty this week. You hear about that?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, I saw you walk by the studio in the afternoon,
and usually usually I don't see it too much much
during my show. You know, I'm in the studio and
you walked by and I noticed a little juror sticker
on your chest.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah. I got to be on a jury and I
got to literally be the foreman of the jury.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Wow, So do you have a hard hat on? Because
you're a foreman.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Ah, it's funny they called it. Actually, the the real
thing that was on the document was presiding juror, which
doesn't sound nearly as cool, but the uh I got,
here's the process. And I had never gotten even this
close to jury duty in my life before. So don't
have you.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Ever been summoned before?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Never?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Never? Never? This was coming to mail?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah. So it started in like November December. I got
a wow. I got a postcard, one of the postcards,
and the first my first I was like, is this
a scam? Because I didn't know right what color was it? Oh,
it was white and it had uh had like a
blue outline and it had UH.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I would have expected it to be like me on orange,
you know, like can instruction paper.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
No, no, no, but it was. I was. I was
looking at like the u RL and stuff on there,
and I was like, it looks legit enough that I
probably shouldn't ignore it. So then they had a QR code,
and I scanned the QR code and it took me
to the site and it's like, okay, fill out all
this information, which is basically my name, my address, you know,
(11:24):
how long I've lived in Douglas County kind of thing,
and it's like, okay, so you are scheduled to be summoned,
and it was something like mid December, and I'm like, well,
that's not going to work because I'm going to Jamaica.
I'm going to Tulsa. Christmas is coming around, and they
give you a couple of like, hey, you can push
this off. So I pushed it off, and I had
to pick like a week or somewhere in like the
(11:48):
March or April area. They give me a window and
I clicked April thirteenth is like the day that I
would be summoned next sure, and then it said okay,
you're good to go. I'd forgotten about it, and then
at some point in March I got another postcard that
was like, hey, April thirteenth year due to be summoned
(12:10):
by the courts of Douglas County, and I was like okay.
I talked talked to Scott Vorhees, who has more experienced
in this world than I do, and kind of told
them just be like, hey, there's a chance I'm not
gonna be in the office that day, and told the
other powers of being. He's like, it's not gonna happen,
so like it's like you're gonna you can call the
(12:34):
day before you're supposed to be summoned and they'll tell
you in all likelihood that you don't actually have to
show up.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Is that because it's like from a group of people
and you get dwindled down or with the case.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Or yeah, So I and I think it just has
to deal with what cases are being heard, right, because
maybe there's one case and they only need a pool
of like thirty people for that particular case. It just
kind of depends. And for whatever reason, it seems like
April thirteenth became a busier day because before I even
called on Sunday to see if I was or was
(13:07):
not needed, I got a confirmation email that was like, hey,
you've got to be there, and I was like, well,
it looks like I got to be there. So I
talked to my people, I got a backup for my
radio show, and then I showed up. I dressed nice good.
I had a nice button up shirt, Yeah you did.
I wore nice pants. I don't dress up to work,
(13:27):
so you know, it's nice to have a reason.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
He's not wearing plaid pajama pants though, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I wear jeans to work, thank you, or shorts like
golf shorts to work. I look presentable, but I don't
put a lot of effort into like looking like I'm
some fancy pants like you when you're working in the
radio stage.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Well, I've I've had a big wood job for about
six months, so there's a little bit of different difference here,
you know.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Fair enough, fair enough. I when I was getting my
first full time job, I was wearing ties to work
every day.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I gotta set the tone, man, set the standard. Man.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
It's a good point, and I appreciate that, and I
think the people around you appreciate that too. Here's what
happened next. I sat in the room. There's probably seventy people,
and then we watched like an eight minute video explaining
the court system and what jury does, and like how
the Constitution explains the right to fare in speedy trial
(14:22):
or whatever. And I sat there and I was like, okay,
so now what happens. And they're like, we're gonna wait
for ten minutes. And that allowed everybody to go to
the bathroom or whatever. I did a lot of research,
like bring a book, you could be sitting there forever.
If they're pulling people one at a time to like
question them. That's not what happened. Right at nine people
(14:43):
from one of the courtrooms. It turned out to be
one of the bailiffs. I thought a bailiff was like
a police officer, a security guard. This guy was like,
we're in a suit. He just looked like he was
kind of a clerk almost, But he was called the bailiff,
and he came in and he gave a list of
the jurors that were signed in that were being called
to go to this particular criminal case, and the rest
(15:06):
of the pool was in for like some civil case.
I have no idea. There were twenty one people's names
were called, and I was one of them, and so
we get in the line. We're in that order, and
then we follow this guy to one of the courtrooms.
We walk into the courtroom and there are two lawyer teams.
What we found was the prosecution is the state representing
(15:28):
the state, and then the defense attorney that was representing
the guy who was being charged was what we found
was domestic domestic violence crime. And I'm not going to
talk about the case specifically, but now in hindsight, this
is how worked. They have like four rows of it
(15:49):
almost looks like it reminds me of a pew in church.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right, like the way that they're that's a good example.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
So they had six people sit in the front, six
people sit right behind them. Again they're in specific order.
Three people sitting in the third row, and then the
last six of us were sitting in the back row,
and I was the first guy in the back row
right after this guy started. There's some French term, I
(16:14):
can't remember what it's called, but it's like a discovery
of the jury basically is what it is. Where the
two lawyer teams essentially talked to the group as a
whole and try to talk to us individually every once
in a while. They only talked to the first fifteen,
the first two rows and the row of three. The
(16:36):
back row didn't have to do anything yet, And I
was just sitting here like, well, it's kind of lame
if I'm just sitting here watching all this happen and
nothing ends up occurring for me, because it was pretty
clear we were just the back row was just like
a group of alternate people. And then pretty shortly after
this process started, they were going one at a time
and having people say their name, their job, the spouse,
(17:01):
what their job is, pertinent information like that. Asked have
you been a victim or been around or have been accused?
Have you? You know, what are your thoughts on domestic
violence because that's what this case is, and a couple
of people said that they had a history of domestic violence.
Pretty predictably, they did not end up on this jury.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Is that a bias thing? Like there might be a bit?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, And they ask everybody do you think you could
set that aside to be fair in a trial, and
everybody still said yes.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
How much of it is subconscious though.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Well, and that's the thing, that's why they don't end
up on Like, that's what they investigated those people's feelings about. Okay,
so what is your experience with domestic violence? And then
as they elaborated, I'm sure that would the people. There's
a reason there are that many people because the pool
is only for a six person jury plus one alternate.
Seven people are on the jury basically, so of the
(17:53):
twenty one people in that room, only a third of
them are actually going to be on the jury.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Now.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Pretty quickly, a guy raised his hand and said, hey,
I'm supposed to be corned right now. I just traveled
from Asia and I'm not supposed to be around anybody.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
And in that room, you guys are already like, uh
so why are you Why did you make it this far?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
The judge literally looked at him as like, so you're
supposed to be quarantined and you came in no mask,
know nothing, and you waited until now to tell anybody.
And he's like, well, I tried to cancel a couple
of days ago, but I was told that, you know,
there was no way. And then she's like you're dismissed,
like let's just get out of here, like what's wrong
with you? And I got called to sit in his seat,
(18:31):
So that's how I got into and he was in
the second row.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So hey, that that kind of bugged you, didn't it though?
Like where were you in? It is exact seat.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Well, no, I didn't care. I've been sick like three
times over the winter. You know, I'm not one of
those germophobes. And the guy didn't sound sick or look sick.
It probably was just some sort of travel restriction more
than anything. Yeah, So I didn't care, but I was
in that moment I was like, all of a sudden, Hey,
I'm actually like on, I'm in the middle of the
(18:58):
jury situation here, and they asked me a few questions,
not me specifically, but there was one that I actually
got to speak on because it was like the me
too movement, and I'm sure you're familiar with the me
too movement a little bit kind of yeah, so it
was a big deal and I noticed it being a
big deal, and maybe it was just me on social media.
(19:18):
Probably in twenty eighteen nineteen somewhere in there, right before
the pandemic, all of a sudden, there were a lot
of accusations by women that meant these men in high
profile positions had been either sexually assaulting or you know,
using violence against them and they just were afraid to
speak up. But with all these people speaking up, they
(19:40):
were using like the hashtag on social media me too,
that they were also a victim of some sort of
issue like that. And I looked around, nobody really said
anything about it, and I was like, well, I know
what that is, and then I, you know, outlined it
because the defense was basically like yeah, so if you
follow the me too movement. Eververybody who was accused was
basically guilty until proven innocent, and a lot of those
(20:03):
guys were eventually proven innocent.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
So like.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Court of public opinion something like that versus a courtroom,
like what do you think? And you know, I had
what I feel like was a fairly intelligent answer, just like,
well the rules there are rules here. There are no
rules in the court of public opinion. Anybody can think
what they want. There's no accountability for that. The rules
of a courtroom are pretty explicit that you have to
follow a legitimate standard of innocent until proven guilty, and
(20:34):
there's a burden on the state to make the defendant
be proven guilty or whatever. And then, of course I
was selected by both sides to be on the jury
of the people in the first two rows, and then
we found out one of the three in the third
row was the alternate. We didn't know that until after.
I don't know if that's how it is all the time,
but they know your name, they have them the list
of like which seats are being occupied by which people,
(20:57):
and then they selected the six or seven people that
they wanted to be on this jury. And then we
got seated and I'm like, oh, I'm on this jury. Now,
and then you sit there and they do the opening statements.
We went to lunch, then the witnesses get called and
you basically just sit there. They give you a pen
and paper and they say write down what you want.
You can use your notes later. Your notes are not evidence,
(21:20):
but your notes are there to help you remember things
that are being said throughout the testimony. I took nine
pages of notes, wow, in a day and a half
worth of testimony, and I used them. I mean I
really did. And the fact that they, you know, chronologically
is like here's the first witness, here's the second witness,
(21:40):
here's the third witness. We all kind of when we
were in the deliberation room, we could all kind of
go back to our notes and know where we needed
to look for the information we were looking for. Pretty simple case.
Four total witnesses, three by the state, a police officer,
the victim, and a nurse that saw her in the
emergency room. And then the only witness from the defense
(22:02):
was the defendant. And it was a very interesting case
as far as you know, just the story, but it
was easy to follow and closing arguments happened basically right
before lunchtime on the second day, so basically it was lunchtime.
They gave us lunch for free. You know, we filled
(22:22):
out a piece of paper to order lunch, and they're
just like, all right, you guys can deliberate, no electronic devices,
no nothing, you know, but now you guys can talk
about the case. The six of us, they dismissed the
alternate judge, and then we sat there for probably an
hour hour and fifteen. We all kind of felt, you know,
we felt like we had enough evidence presented to us
(22:47):
to need to talk through it. But none of us
really seemed to feel like at any point the guy
was actually guilty of what he was being accused of.
There was just too many holes in the in the story,
and the witness that would have been a big one
is a cousin of the victim, but she was not
(23:08):
called and was not available to be called apparently, so
that left a lot of holes that just nobody else
could fill. And we just you can't convict the guy
without a lot of that stuff being answered.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
So what about your experience? I feel like, knowing you
a fair amount, this is something that I would anticipate
that you enjoyed, that you thought it was kind of cool,
especially considering it wasn't a stuck in court for three
months and you got to go on witness protection. But
what do you think did you enjoy it? I mean,
did you find it pretty cool or blame or what?
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I was a bit annoyed that I was called because
you hear the worst, right, It's just like, oh, you
just go and you sit around and you wait to
figure out if you're going to be on a jury
or not. And then a lot of the time when
you're put on a jury, there's this It's not necessarily true,
(24:02):
but Hollywood makes you feel like this is something that
is true, that you're you could be in danger, like
people recognize you and you know. This is why I
thought when I showed up, I'd get dismissed because of
what my job was. That didn't happen. They didn't seem
to care at all, which kind of surprised me, right,
because you don't want somebody that other people are familiar with.
(24:26):
But these were These were people who were not born
in America that were in court here and English was
a second language for them. So it wasn't surprising to
me that anybody involved in the case. Maybe the lawyers
were familiar with who I was, but that's not necessarily
going to factor into relevant, not not to the evidence
(24:48):
of the case or and I'm not friends with them.
I don't know I don't know them, so I'm not
going to be you know, they asked, you know anybody
in this courtroom and you look around and you're like no.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Which that would have gotten you immediately out of taken
off of consideration.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
I would have been told to go home right away. Yeah,
so the uh as soon as I sat down and
started learning about the case and the fact that it
was happening that fast, right it was nine am. I
was supposed to be there at eight thirty. We watched
this video after I get checked in and I brought
a book with me. I brought my laptop with me.
I had no idea like what I like, how much
time I was going to need a film? Could I
(25:25):
do some work or whatever. By nine oh five, I
was in a courtroom and they were the lawyers were
starting to talk to people. By nine point fifteen, I
was sitting in one of the like first two rows,
preparing potentially to be on a jury. By ten, I'm
being sat down in a seat to be on the
jury and we were off right, and so at that
(25:48):
point when I knew I was on the jury, I
was like, okay, I'm in, Like, I'm interested and I
want to do a good job with this, and I
I really didn't dread it. What dread The only frustrating
part was when they said, you're gonna have to come
back tomorrow because we're not gonna be able to get
this done today. We still have a witness, we still
have cross examination and a redirect after that. We have
no idea how long it's going to take. And it
(26:08):
was already like three fifteen or so, and courts supposed
to dismiss no later than like four three or five.
So they were just like, we're not going to try
to rush through this, and then had to deliberate tonight,
We're just going to bring you back tomorrow. I had
stuff already lined up for work the next day, so
that was a bit of a pain in the butt.
I had to get everything lined up for the next
day for work after I got out of there. But
(26:31):
besides that, I was interested. I did take it seriously,
and by the end of the closing arguments, I you know,
I was interested in being the presiding juror. I would
like to get that experience too. Who knows when the
next time I'm going to be on a jury. Is
just to kind of be the leader. And everybody agreed that,
you know, like hey, you could do it, and I
(26:51):
was like, okay, great. So the six of us sat
there and I kind of controlled the conversation in the
deliberating room and double and trip check to make sure
everybody got everything off their chest. Took us, you know,
our fifteen minutes or so to deliberate. And then I
didn't deliver you know, you see in the movies, like
we the jury find the defendant not guilty. I didn't
(27:12):
deliver that. I basically filled out a form that has
a bunch of other language in it that is read
by the bailiff, right, and then he reads the verdict.
And then the judge looks at me and says, mister Songer,
is this the unanimous, you know, verdict of the jury.
(27:32):
And I say yes, you're on it. And I say yes,
you're on our a couple of times. And then the
state attorneys the prosecution were asked if they wanted to
pull the jury, and they said, yes, we would. I
don't know why except the fact that maybe somebody was
holding out that they thought. I don't think they're probably
just doing their due diligence. But then they go one
(27:54):
by one to the jury and say what was how
did you vote? And we all said not guilty, And
then they talked to us. That was a weird thing.
I didn't know how much I could say afterwards, or
should say. But the as we were leaving the jury
room and they gave us this little certificate of service
basically as their name printed on it, which I find
to be nice. It's kind of cheesy for some people,
(28:14):
but it says, you know, this certifies that Emery R.
Songer was you know, served his duty as a juror
in Douglas County, Nebraska or whatever. And we got that
and we were kind of debriefed. We were totally leave
our notes there. They're going to destroy all the notes.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
And then as we walked out, the state attorneys were
standing outside the door waiting for us to ask us, Okay,
so what's up. Why did you get to that verdict?
How did you get there? And I think it was
more not just because they were upset about it, but
they were like, what what were we missing.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
More like a if this is crude, I don't intend
it to be, but kind of like a film session,
kind of like what what was done here that made
you think that it was not guilty? Kind of let's
evaluate here, let's.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
If there was like if we could pick your brain
on what you needed to get to a guilty verse,
what was that? And that's the vibe. I god also,
and there were a few things and I think, you know,
the lack of that one witness was a big deal.
And they said she just there was no way we
could call her. We wanted to, but she wasn't available,
not not responding to calls or anything. It's just like, Okay,
(29:27):
that's weird.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
That could have been the make or break right there.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
It could have been at the same time, pathetically, at
the same time, I think that person was not available
for a pretty good reason that the story wasn't going
to line up properly enough to convict because there was
stuff that that individual had seen or said or done
that nobody else, including the police officer and the nurse
that were called to the stand, they didn't have the
(29:51):
exact same stories. They had slightly different variations of the story,
and it was one of those things where you're just
kind of like, you can't this. This absolutely has reasonable
doubt as to whether or not this guy did this,
you know what I mean, right, And we talked to
them probably five minutes, and then we left. As we
(30:12):
were leaving, I did not expect this either. We were
leaving the court the area where the courtroom doors are,
and there's a waiting room area next to those courtrooms
where I'm assuming when people go and they have like
a speeding ticket or something that they're trying to fight
these courtrooms are, they go in there and they talk
to a judge and whatever. So they're usually just random
(30:34):
people just kind of sitting in there as you're walking
in or walking out, showing up for their appearance in court.
And the defendant was there with his attorneys and the interpreters,
and he was standing there and there were tears in
his eyes as we were trying less kind of walking
past them, and he was just like, thank you, I
love you, thank you, I love you. And I was like, wow,
(30:56):
you know, it's you take this stuff very seriously, but
you don't in a lot of ways, and you're not
supposed to. In the moment, you can't be emotional about it,
But what was a great experience for me doing my
civic duty. It could have ended up being like the
worst day of this guy's life or one of the
worst days of his life. You know, like there was
a lot on the line for him and for the
attorneys also. You know, I'm not to say the attorneys
(31:17):
don't have something on the line too, but could you imagine.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
It's a paycheck versus their livelihood?
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah, like who knows what, you know, And we would
have committed to the guy if there was evidence to
do so. But you can just you kind of forget
how human a lot of this is from the different
roles that are being played. You know, it's a different
emotion when you're the judge. It's a different emotion when
you're an attorney. It's a different emotion when you're the
(31:43):
jury or a court reporter or the bailiff. If it's
different if you're the witness, one of the witnesses that
isn't directly related to the people of the case except
the fact that they responded to the call. They were
you know, they talked to the victim at so point,
but then the victim, who was not there by the
way on the second day and then the defendant, I mean, like,
(32:07):
this is their lives and things are you know, who
knows what's going to happen for them next. But it
kind of reminded me at the end there. It's just like, wow,
this there's a lot of human emotion in something like this,
and you put your trust into the citizens of you know,
the community to be as fair as possible. It's a
really important job. And if you can't do that fairly,
(32:31):
the best thing you could possibly do is just say
I can't do this fairly. And there were people on
that in that jury pool that said some really very
interesting things. I won't say what they said, but it
pretty much quickly disqualified them. Considering that this was a
foreign guy who was born out of this country's English
second language guy. A couple of people made it pretty
(32:52):
clear that they'd have a hard time believing a guy
like that.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Well, and that's important to recognize too, though, and that
that's an opinion and that somebody can have and that's okay,
But you made a point seeing this guy, he's saying,
thank you, I love you, think you I love you. Well,
you don't want somebody who's going to have a biased
opinion because of his nationality, because of where he's born,
or what speaks, what language he speaks, to negatively influence
(33:17):
the case for better or for worse, whatever that could be.
That's very interesting. And he made a good point too
about you know, you're there to be calculated and precise
in your decision making and not to be flooded with emotion.
You I've seen you. You are a thinker, you are a feeler,
but I think that you take pride in things like
(33:39):
that so much more. You know, like I can't want
to do it a good job. I heard that you
did this. We talked about it a little bit, and
I was like, you know what, it makes sense like
you you strike me as somebody that would take a
lot of pride in being on a jury panel because
you're very educated and you like to be fully thought
(34:01):
out in your decisions before you execute him. They I mean,
I think you're a perfect jury candidate.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Well, I appreciate you saying that I wouldn't volunteer myself
to be a full time juror by any means, but
with anybody, well maybe, yeah, And I know there are
a lot of people out there that are begging to
get onto a jury duty. You know, they love true
crime and all that stuff. Trust me, you're much more
likely to get picked if you don't want it. You know,
the gods of the American court system overlooking the people
(34:28):
of this country. They feel like you're going to get
the postcard if you really don't want to be there.
But when you are there, the best thing you can
do is embrace it, take it as seriously as possible,
and maybe you'll have a good experience. I feel good
about the experience itself because it's not something everybody gets
to do. And the fact that I had a case
that was interesting, right. It could have been a case
(34:53):
where a guy felt like a pothole damaged his car
and he was seeking, you know, a few thousand dollars
from the state, and you had to sit there and
listen to the way that oh yeah, I mean, could
you imagine? Right? And that's not to say people shouldn't
take that to court, but being on a jury having
to decide whether or not somebody deserves that seems like
a lot different than deciding Okay, this did or didn't happen.
(35:16):
With the domestic violence case, this is something that would
have been on like Law and Order, right, Yeah, you know,
it's not nearly a sensational some of the other law
and orders that you know they need to make to
be super entertaining for people to want to sit there
and watch for an hour. But it would have been
the type of case that was on a TV show
like that, So following along was pretty easy because there
(35:37):
weren't as many witnesses. But it was still an interesting
enough case where I was totally locked in. Everybody on
the jury was locked in, And I'm grateful that my
experience was with something like that and not, you know,
it could have been something else, right, And I have
no idea what the other option was, because there was another,
at least one more case that they were taking people
to be in a jury pool that morning of but
(35:59):
my name got called to go to the with the
first group or to one. Yeah, to this criminal case.
So there's jury duty, man. You I mean, you have
on your entire life to live. Who's to say when
or how many times you may get summoned. But I
think you'd enjoy it too.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
I think I would. I'm curious too, I would be
interested to give it a try. You know, I don't
know though, again it's not something that I'm yearning for.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And you shouldn't be. But like I said, it's one
of those things that's a responsibility. If you get too
excited to do it, I feel like it can become
performative in a way for someone it's more about you
being there than the case. And that's what I think.
That's why I think people who have an excitement to
be on the jury. They said this at the beginning
when the lawyers were like, Hey, we're figuring out who
(36:48):
we want to be on this jury. The quiet ones
are the ones that get picked. And I wasn't gonna
say anything until I got called on it, but there
were a couple of people that just would not stop talking.
They were very clearly like, I am talking myself out
of this by just being loud. I'm talking about my
history of domestic violence, I'm talking about my biases. And
(37:09):
it's good that they say that. But yes, you could
also get the vibe that a couple of those people
did not want to be committed to being on this
jury for any reason at all. But it was really
seven people. Only one of the seven that was picked
really felt like they talked much at all beyond one
or two times when they were called upon. So if
(37:31):
you really want to be on a jury, it shouldn't
be about you kind of making it about yourself and
about you being there. If you get the opportunity to
get called and then you're sitting there in a pool
of possible jurors, you being quiet and letting the conversation
kind of come to you will make it. I think
pretty likely that you're gonna be one of the people
(37:52):
that's going to land on that jury.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah, that's very interesting. I think about the movie Twelve
Angry Men. What a movie, you know, and it's it's
a slower film, but it's such an intricate film, and
I think that is is kind of cool. You know,
a lot of you said Law and Order, or there's
a there's a series that I've watched called Suits on
Netflix and it's about you know, a big shot lawyer, attorney,
(38:19):
you know, flying around town. But twelve every Man is
a really good film, old old school too and smoking,
and I just think that.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
That's Henry Henry Fonda in that movie. Yeah, and go
back and when you watch that, I don't want you
to get it's not as you're not gonna likely end
up on a case of that nature, especially in a
place like Douglas County. How often has there been, you know,
kind of a situation where you're gonna need a jury
(38:48):
of twelve in Douglas County for us, you know, six
people that end up in the deliberating room for the jury.
But it depends on the case, it depends on the rules.
I'm not gonna pretend like I'm some expert, but the
fact that you know, you see in the movie, and
I know it's a movie, but and it's really well made,
it's really a play. Pretty much the entire thing takes
(39:10):
place in just the one room. There's a very short,
shortendous Yeah, there's a very short kind of preamble in
the beginning in the courtroom where they are just like, okay,
now the jury's going to gore. You know, that's just
to set this, and then at the end when everybody's leaving,
the rest of the film is literally just in those
four walls, which makes it so gripping honestly to follow.
(39:33):
But they're talking about a murder case and whether not
in an individual In this case, a young man was
going to be sentenced to death, essentially for his role
in a murder, and it's interesting to see over the
course of it's really like an hour and a half
in the movie, but you're led to believe it's over
(39:55):
at least a few hours in that deliberating room where
all of these guys start to have to ask questions
of themselves, their own personal biases and prejudices, their own
opinions about like the information that they saw and the
(40:15):
way that they interpret that in the job that they
have as a jury when they're supposed to leave a
lot of that at the door, including their own personal experiences.
So I'm one hundred percent with you if you want
to get a good idea of what a jury is
supposed to look like. It's a bit sensationalized in that film,
but it's one of those movies that whenever it's on,
I'm sitting down like I'm watching it. It's incredible, especially
(40:38):
considering the fact that I just served on a jury.
So it was Fund's not the right word. It was
an interesting experience and I'm happy I got it, and
I think you would feel the same way if you
got that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Definitely, I think I would too.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Hey, thanks for coming in and talking to me about Yeah,
of course.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
You know. I'm here in the building every day. Let
me know. I'll join you.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Let's sue it again sometime.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Absolutely, my man. All right.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
That is Peyton Hihlock. You can hear him with Gene
Stouthert from ten to eleven every morning. You can hear
him with Chris Baker two to six every afternoon on
eleven ten kfa B. I'm Emory Songer, so happy for
you to be listening to the Emery Songer Podcast. Thanks
for tuning in about my jury duty experience among other things,
and we will be back in this feed for you
next week. Have a great, safe weekend, and we will
(41:25):
chat with you again very soon.
It is the Emory Songer Podcast on what is Friday,
April seventeen. Thank you for listening. Uh, this is a
really good day because it's the end of a work week.
I got a big weekend coming up and talk about
that in a second. Get a chance to actually sit
here and talk to my old producer, my old partner
in crime, my guy Peyton high Lock.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
What's going on? Emory?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hey, what's up?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Dude?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
How's how's life treating? I don't get to see you
the same amount of like used to see you. I
used to sit in the room and talk to you
for four hours right day.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It's an interesting change now, you know. I'm in the
building a lot more doing the show in the morning
show in the afternoon. But I will say I'm enjoying it.
I'm enjoying it. A lot of good things going on
right now.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
What's the uh, what's the vibe on the morning show?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Like?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
How you enjoying that?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
The morning show is good? Taking a lot of phone calls?
A bit different than the It's different, you know because
normally the host comes in, you know, like you would
come into your show and that like you do your
IOWA show and you would have your show prepped, you know,
kind of these major things that you want to talk about.
You leave a little bit of space for some news stories,
(01:20):
but you know, Gene comes in and it's really dependent
on what the caller wants, what the emailer wants.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It's kind of cool, though a very different type of show.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I enjoyed a lot. I have no idea what we're
going to talk about. Maybe there's a little bit of overlap.
You know, we were talking about the crazy knife lady
at Walmart the last few days.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Okay, starting interrupt. What was like, like, I'm not on
Omaha every single day, on Omaha Radio every single day anymore.
What was the reaction when that story came out? Because
you would have been with Chris Baker that afternoon right.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
This news broke while Jean Stouthert and I were on
the air. Oh okay, so we had to We actually
had a Kathleen Cowch Senator was in an interview with
Gene about ten twenty and we basically had to cut
her off. She was talking about a transgender bill legislation,
and we had to cut that short. Wow and timing right,
(02:20):
and we had to cut to live coverage, and everybody
was kind of like, what in the world is going on?
Nobody had any understanding. We didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
So so how did that work? Did Was it the
newsroom that just kind of took it from there?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, so Terry Lahy, who's in our newsroom, you're pretty
familiar with Terry. He was headed in to the to
the building, to the studio and Scott called him and said,
just go, just go straight to the scene. So we
had Terry Lahy on scene from the KFAB newsroom on
scene and he was calling in into the show to
give us live updates. You couldn't have planned it any
(02:57):
better than that. I mean, it worked out perfectly. He
was on the scene and getting it as soon as possible.
We cut to a couple local news stations for the
press interviews and stuff. But anytime that a kid, I
mean the real danger is that this kid was sliced,
I mean stabbing, a cutting, whatever. But it was a
(03:17):
big slice along the kind of cheekbone temple area on
the side of the head. You hear that, you're immediately concerned.
And then as the few days passed, we found out that.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
This woman was insane.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Insane. Yeah, you know when I took a psychology class
in high school. The message was, don't ever call anybody
crazy without calling her crazy. She was about as close
to that as you can get. But she was definitely insane.
Definitely insane, schizophrenic, I think is what we found out
it to be.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Why is a person like that who already, like two
years ago we found out I'm sure Chris talked about
this as well. She had been gotten in trouble for
like setting a house on fire and trying to kill
her father.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah. Yeah, she doused her father in gasoline, lighter, fluid,
gasoline something, yeah, flammable liquid.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And then just like set it on fire and then
ran and hid to church. Yeah, and she was like
just wandering around free.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Well, we got to have a better system.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
She was held for nineteen days, though Amory nineteen days
after that happened, she was held nineteen days and then
she was released boh nineteen days of safety before the
danger returned.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I'm sure, I'm sure. I'm sure that made us all
feel a lot better. We have to have a better system, dude.
The court system has to be better when it comes
to individuals like that. I know that we know have
these protocols and these rules, and people have their rights
and everything, but somebody who is literally not punished because
of reason for insanity should not just be then turned
(04:51):
out to the rest of society to inflict whatever craziness
she wants to inflict. And apparently, like I was reading,
she had been doing some sort of classes or something
to try to help her. I guess, but I think
we can go ahead and say that didn't necessarily work
super well. And I'm happy for the police officers to
(05:13):
be on scene as fast as they were. It sounded
like they were in the area because they were there
so fast. She took she stole a kitchen knife, put
it in the back basically of a mother, and told
her to walk. And you know, people are calling nine
one one and all this stuff like this happened in Omaha.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Right, yeah, you know, and not even too far away
from where we're at now.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
No, not even I don't live far away from where
that happened. It just tells you that it doesn't matter
where the Walmart is, the people of Walmart will find it.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
It's but I don't I don't know if you feel
this way, but I've always kind of deemed that Walmart
as a little bit dangerous. I choose to avoid it.
I'd rather go to the Aldi down the street, just
a little bit more north.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, but you're not gonna be able to buy tires
at Aldi.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
No, you're right. I also wouldn't steal a kitchen knife
from Aldie. I don't even know if they sell those, but.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I mean, I don't know. I'm glad the kid's okay.
It's easier for us to talk about this with the
kid being okay. But man, the court system, there's got
to be another answer. There's got to be another way.
And everybody wants to be like mental health is mental
health that It's like, okay, so what do we do?
You know, like there is It's not that easiest to
(06:27):
be like, well she was crazy. It's like, okay, well
so your answer is to just like let her go
and just we don't have an institution that she can
just kind of like live at as she works through
whatever her mental issues are. She was trying to inflict
legitimate harm to a toddler. I mean, who does that?
(06:50):
A strange toddler too? There was no this was completely random.
She didn't know who these people were.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, that's the crazy thing about it is it was unprompted,
there was no premeditation involved, completely random, completely random, and
she was wearing pajama pants. That's I don't know. You
could maybe this is it. If this is you and
you feel offended by it, maybe just do a little
(07:17):
deep dive and reflect a little bit. But people that
wear plaid pajama pants out of the house, there's a
little bit of questioning that needs to be done. Anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I hope that this does not land like we're making
light of this crime, because we're not. But you can
tell a lot about a person by their willingness to
wear pajama pants outside the home.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And there was commentary saying that the officers shouldn't have
used lethal force. Just just get your taser out. Just taser. Yeah, yeah,
there's a knife at his head.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Guys, people who make those arguments you just cannot take
them seriously because they obviously have no idea what's going on,
and they have absolutely like I would. I wish there
was like a simulation where we could do a simulation
of Okay, so what is the situation when you all
of a sudden are the victim and you have a
crazy person with like a weapon, or they're trying to
(08:11):
hurt you, or they have you in like a gunpoint,
And would you still feel the same way, would you
tell the officers just taste them, just just to try
to not use complete lethal force. It's like, man, it
just does not work that way. You cannot reason with
some of these people. And you know, what what if
it what if the taser malfunction doesn't work the same way,
(08:31):
that can may not be with us today.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
You know, the movie solely no, it's about that plane, oh,
solely the pilot solely, right, you know, it's a it's
a movie about the event. And some would argue that it's.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
A little bit Tom Hanks, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
It's it's not quite the same in the movie as
what happened in your life. But in the movie, they
they're they're in court and they're doing these simulations because
they were in court because the I don't know, the
airport or whatever said that they could have made it
to an airstrip safely instead of landing in the Hudson River.
And so in trial they had all these simulations of
(09:09):
bird strike, bird strike, bird strike, and the plane would
immediately turn and divert right away. And they kept landing,
and solely, who's being played by Tom Hanks, kept saying, Okay, well,
where where's your element of real life? Oh no, what
just happened? You know, in these simulations, it's not the
same as in real life. You have adrenaline pumping through
your body, or you're scared, you're unsure, you don't know
(09:29):
what to do, but it's an immediate decision, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, it's like this pilot just did this because you
wanted to be a hero.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Come on, Yeah, he wanted to land in a river,
freezing river because he wanted a cape.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, come on, what are we doing here anyway? I
haven't seen that. I need to see that. The story
when it happened was pretty crazy too. I did my
civic duty this week. You hear about that?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, I saw you walk by the studio in the afternoon,
and usually usually I don't see it too much much
during my show. You know, I'm in the studio and
you walked by and I noticed a little juror sticker
on your chest.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah. I got to be on a jury and I
got to literally be the foreman of the jury.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Wow, So do you have a hard hat on? Because
you're a foreman.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Ah, it's funny they called it. Actually, the the real
thing that was on the document was presiding juror, which
doesn't sound nearly as cool, but the uh I got,
here's the process. And I had never gotten even this
close to jury duty in my life before. So don't
have you.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Ever been summoned before?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Never?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Never? Never? This was coming to mail?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah. So it started in like November December. I got
a wow. I got a postcard, one of the postcards,
and the first my first I was like, is this
a scam? Because I didn't know right what color was it? Oh,
it was white and it had uh had like a
blue outline and it had UH.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I would have expected it to be like me on orange,
you know, like can instruction paper.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
No, no, no, but it was. I was. I was
looking at like the u RL and stuff on there,
and I was like, it looks legit enough that I
probably shouldn't ignore it. So then they had a QR code,
and I scanned the QR code and it took me
to the site and it's like, okay, fill out all
this information, which is basically my name, my address, you know,
(11:24):
how long I've lived in Douglas County kind of thing,
and it's like, okay, so you are scheduled to be summoned,
and it was something like mid December, and I'm like, well,
that's not going to work because I'm going to Jamaica.
I'm going to Tulsa. Christmas is coming around, and they
give you a couple of like, hey, you can push
this off. So I pushed it off, and I had
to pick like a week or somewhere in like the
(11:48):
March or April area. They give me a window and
I clicked April thirteenth is like the day that I
would be summoned next sure, and then it said okay,
you're good to go. I'd forgotten about it, and then
at some point in March I got another postcard that
was like, hey, April thirteenth year due to be summoned
(12:10):
by the courts of Douglas County, and I was like okay.
I talked talked to Scott Vorhees, who has more experienced
in this world than I do, and kind of told
them just be like, hey, there's a chance I'm not
gonna be in the office that day, and told the
other powers of being. He's like, it's not gonna happen,
so like it's like you're gonna you can call the
(12:34):
day before you're supposed to be summoned and they'll tell
you in all likelihood that you don't actually have to
show up.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Is that because it's like from a group of people
and you get dwindled down or with the case.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Or yeah, So I and I think it just has
to deal with what cases are being heard, right, because
maybe there's one case and they only need a pool
of like thirty people for that particular case. It just
kind of depends. And for whatever reason, it seems like
April thirteenth became a busier day because before I even
called on Sunday to see if I was or was
(13:07):
not needed, I got a confirmation email that was like, hey,
you've got to be there, and I was like, well,
it looks like I got to be there. So I
talked to my people, I got a backup for my
radio show, and then I showed up. I dressed nice good.
I had a nice button up shirt, Yeah you did.
I wore nice pants. I don't dress up to work,
(13:27):
so you know, it's nice to have a reason.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
He's not wearing plaid pajama pants though, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I wear jeans to work, thank you, or shorts like
golf shorts to work. I look presentable, but I don't
put a lot of effort into like looking like I'm
some fancy pants like you when you're working in the
radio stage.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Well, I've I've had a big wood job for about
six months, so there's a little bit of different difference here,
you know.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Fair enough, fair enough. I when I was getting my
first full time job, I was wearing ties to work
every day.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I gotta set the tone, man, set the standard. Man.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
It's a good point, and I appreciate that, and I
think the people around you appreciate that too. Here's what
happened next. I sat in the room. There's probably seventy people,
and then we watched like an eight minute video explaining
the court system and what jury does, and like how
the Constitution explains the right to fare in speedy trial
(14:22):
or whatever. And I sat there and I was like, okay,
so now what happens. And they're like, we're gonna wait
for ten minutes. And that allowed everybody to go to
the bathroom or whatever. I did a lot of research,
like bring a book, you could be sitting there forever.
If they're pulling people one at a time to like
question them. That's not what happened. Right at nine people
(14:43):
from one of the courtrooms. It turned out to be
one of the bailiffs. I thought a bailiff was like
a police officer, a security guard. This guy was like,
we're in a suit. He just looked like he was
kind of a clerk almost, But he was called the bailiff,
and he came in and he gave a list of
the jurors that were signed in that were being called
to go to this particular criminal case, and the rest
(15:06):
of the pool was in for like some civil case.
I have no idea. There were twenty one people's names
were called, and I was one of them, and so
we get in the line. We're in that order, and
then we follow this guy to one of the courtrooms.
We walk into the courtroom and there are two lawyer teams.
What we found was the prosecution is the state representing
(15:28):
the state, and then the defense attorney that was representing
the guy who was being charged was what we found
was domestic domestic violence crime. And I'm not going to
talk about the case specifically, but now in hindsight, this
is how worked. They have like four rows of it
(15:49):
almost looks like it reminds me of a pew in church.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right, like the way that they're that's a good example.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
So they had six people sit in the front, six
people sit right behind them. Again they're in specific order.
Three people sitting in the third row, and then the
last six of us were sitting in the back row,
and I was the first guy in the back row
right after this guy started. There's some French term, I
(16:14):
can't remember what it's called, but it's like a discovery
of the jury basically is what it is. Where the
two lawyer teams essentially talked to the group as a
whole and try to talk to us individually every once
in a while. They only talked to the first fifteen,
the first two rows and the row of three. The
(16:36):
back row didn't have to do anything yet, And I
was just sitting here like, well, it's kind of lame
if I'm just sitting here watching all this happen and
nothing ends up occurring for me, because it was pretty
clear we were just the back row was just like
a group of alternate people. And then pretty shortly after
this process started, they were going one at a time
and having people say their name, their job, the spouse,
(17:01):
what their job is, pertinent information like that. Asked have
you been a victim or been around or have been accused?
Have you? You know, what are your thoughts on domestic
violence because that's what this case is, and a couple
of people said that they had a history of domestic violence.
Pretty predictably, they did not end up on this jury.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Is that a bias thing? Like there might be a bit?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, And they ask everybody do you think you could
set that aside to be fair in a trial, and
everybody still said yes.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
How much of it is subconscious though.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Well, and that's the thing, that's why they don't end
up on Like, that's what they investigated those people's feelings about. Okay,
so what is your experience with domestic violence? And then
as they elaborated, I'm sure that would the people. There's
a reason there are that many people because the pool
is only for a six person jury plus one alternate.
Seven people are on the jury basically, so of the
(17:53):
twenty one people in that room, only a third of
them are actually going to be on the jury.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Now.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Pretty quickly, a guy raised his hand and said, hey,
I'm supposed to be corned right now. I just traveled
from Asia and I'm not supposed to be around anybody.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
And in that room, you guys are already like, uh
so why are you Why did you make it this far?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
The judge literally looked at him as like, so you're
supposed to be quarantined and you came in no mask,
know nothing, and you waited until now to tell anybody.
And he's like, well, I tried to cancel a couple
of days ago, but I was told that, you know,
there was no way. And then she's like you're dismissed,
like let's just get out of here, like what's wrong
with you? And I got called to sit in his seat,
(18:31):
So that's how I got into and he was in
the second row.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
So hey, that that kind of bugged you, didn't it though?
Like where were you in? It is exact seat.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Well, no, I didn't care. I've been sick like three
times over the winter. You know, I'm not one of
those germophobes. And the guy didn't sound sick or look sick.
It probably was just some sort of travel restriction more
than anything. Yeah, So I didn't care, but I was
in that moment I was like, all of a sudden, Hey,
I'm actually like on, I'm in the middle of the
(18:58):
jury situation here, and they asked me a few questions,
not me specifically, but there was one that I actually
got to speak on because it was like the me
too movement, and I'm sure you're familiar with the me
too movement a little bit kind of yeah, so it
was a big deal and I noticed it being a
big deal, and maybe it was just me on social media.
(19:18):
Probably in twenty eighteen nineteen somewhere in there, right before
the pandemic, all of a sudden, there were a lot
of accusations by women that meant these men in high
profile positions had been either sexually assaulting or you know,
using violence against them and they just were afraid to
speak up. But with all these people speaking up, they
(19:40):
were using like the hashtag on social media me too,
that they were also a victim of some sort of
issue like that. And I looked around, nobody really said
anything about it, and I was like, well, I know
what that is, and then I, you know, outlined it
because the defense was basically like yeah, so if you
follow the me too movement. Eververybody who was accused was
basically guilty until proven innocent, and a lot of those
(20:03):
guys were eventually proven innocent.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
So like.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Court of public opinion something like that versus a courtroom,
like what do you think? And you know, I had
what I feel like was a fairly intelligent answer, just like,
well the rules there are rules here. There are no
rules in the court of public opinion. Anybody can think
what they want. There's no accountability for that. The rules
of a courtroom are pretty explicit that you have to
follow a legitimate standard of innocent until proven guilty, and
(20:34):
there's a burden on the state to make the defendant
be proven guilty or whatever. And then, of course I
was selected by both sides to be on the jury
of the people in the first two rows, and then
we found out one of the three in the third
row was the alternate. We didn't know that until after.
I don't know if that's how it is all the time,
but they know your name, they have them the list
of like which seats are being occupied by which people,
(20:57):
and then they selected the six or seven people that
they wanted to be on this jury. And then we
got seated and I'm like, oh, I'm on this jury. Now,
and then you sit there and they do the opening statements.
We went to lunch, then the witnesses get called and
you basically just sit there. They give you a pen
and paper and they say write down what you want.
You can use your notes later. Your notes are not evidence,
(21:20):
but your notes are there to help you remember things
that are being said throughout the testimony. I took nine
pages of notes, wow, in a day and a half
worth of testimony, and I used them. I mean I
really did. And the fact that they, you know, chronologically
is like here's the first witness, here's the second witness,
(21:40):
here's the third witness. We all kind of when we
were in the deliberation room, we could all kind of
go back to our notes and know where we needed
to look for the information we were looking for. Pretty simple case.
Four total witnesses, three by the state, a police officer,
the victim, and a nurse that saw her in the
emergency room. And then the only witness from the defense
(22:02):
was the defendant. And it was a very interesting case
as far as you know, just the story, but it
was easy to follow and closing arguments happened basically right
before lunchtime on the second day, so basically it was lunchtime.
They gave us lunch for free. You know, we filled
(22:22):
out a piece of paper to order lunch, and they're
just like, all right, you guys can deliberate, no electronic devices,
no nothing, you know, but now you guys can talk
about the case. The six of us, they dismissed the
alternate judge, and then we sat there for probably an
hour hour and fifteen. We all kind of felt, you know,
we felt like we had enough evidence presented to us
(22:47):
to need to talk through it. But none of us
really seemed to feel like at any point the guy
was actually guilty of what he was being accused of.
There was just too many holes in the in the story,
and the witness that would have been a big one
is a cousin of the victim, but she was not
(23:08):
called and was not available to be called apparently, so
that left a lot of holes that just nobody else
could fill. And we just you can't convict the guy
without a lot of that stuff being answered.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
So what about your experience? I feel like, knowing you
a fair amount, this is something that I would anticipate
that you enjoyed, that you thought it was kind of cool,
especially considering it wasn't a stuck in court for three
months and you got to go on witness protection. But
what do you think did you enjoy it? I mean,
did you find it pretty cool or blame or what?
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I was a bit annoyed that I was called because
you hear the worst, right, It's just like, oh, you
just go and you sit around and you wait to
figure out if you're going to be on a jury
or not. And then a lot of the time when
you're put on a jury, there's this It's not necessarily true,
(24:02):
but Hollywood makes you feel like this is something that
is true, that you're you could be in danger, like
people recognize you and you know. This is why I
thought when I showed up, I'd get dismissed because of
what my job was. That didn't happen. They didn't seem
to care at all, which kind of surprised me, right,
because you don't want somebody that other people are familiar with.
(24:26):
But these were These were people who were not born
in America that were in court here and English was
a second language for them. So it wasn't surprising to
me that anybody involved in the case. Maybe the lawyers
were familiar with who I was, but that's not necessarily
going to factor into relevant, not not to the evidence
(24:48):
of the case or and I'm not friends with them.
I don't know I don't know them, so I'm not
going to be you know, they asked, you know anybody
in this courtroom and you look around and you're like no.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Which that would have gotten you immediately out of taken
off of consideration.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
I would have been told to go home right away. Yeah,
so the uh as soon as I sat down and
started learning about the case and the fact that it
was happening that fast, right it was nine am. I
was supposed to be there at eight thirty. We watched
this video after I get checked in and I brought
a book with me. I brought my laptop with me.
I had no idea like what I like, how much
time I was going to need a film? Could I
(25:25):
do some work or whatever. By nine oh five, I
was in a courtroom and they were the lawyers were
starting to talk to people. By nine point fifteen, I
was sitting in one of the like first two rows,
preparing potentially to be on a jury. By ten, I'm
being sat down in a seat to be on the
jury and we were off right, and so at that
(25:48):
point when I knew I was on the jury, I
was like, okay, I'm in, Like, I'm interested and I
want to do a good job with this, and I
I really didn't dread it. What dread The only frustrating
part was when they said, you're gonna have to come
back tomorrow because we're not gonna be able to get
this done today. We still have a witness, we still
have cross examination and a redirect after that. We have
no idea how long it's going to take. And it
(26:08):
was already like three fifteen or so, and courts supposed
to dismiss no later than like four three or five.
So they were just like, we're not going to try
to rush through this, and then had to deliberate tonight,
We're just going to bring you back tomorrow. I had
stuff already lined up for work the next day, so
that was a bit of a pain in the butt.
I had to get everything lined up for the next
day for work after I got out of there. But
(26:31):
besides that, I was interested. I did take it seriously,
and by the end of the closing arguments, I you know,
I was interested in being the presiding juror. I would
like to get that experience too. Who knows when the
next time I'm going to be on a jury. Is
just to kind of be the leader. And everybody agreed that,
you know, like hey, you could do it, and I
(26:51):
was like, okay, great. So the six of us sat
there and I kind of controlled the conversation in the
deliberating room and double and trip check to make sure
everybody got everything off their chest. Took us, you know,
our fifteen minutes or so to deliberate. And then I
didn't deliver you know, you see in the movies, like
we the jury find the defendant not guilty. I didn't
(27:12):
deliver that. I basically filled out a form that has
a bunch of other language in it that is read
by the bailiff, right, and then he reads the verdict.
And then the judge looks at me and says, mister Songer,
is this the unanimous, you know, verdict of the jury.
(27:32):
And I say yes, you're on it. And I say yes,
you're on our a couple of times. And then the
state attorneys the prosecution were asked if they wanted to
pull the jury, and they said, yes, we would. I
don't know why except the fact that maybe somebody was
holding out that they thought. I don't think they're probably
just doing their due diligence. But then they go one
(27:54):
by one to the jury and say what was how
did you vote? And we all said not guilty, And
then they talked to us. That was a weird thing.
I didn't know how much I could say afterwards, or
should say. But the as we were leaving the jury
room and they gave us this little certificate of service
basically as their name printed on it, which I find
to be nice. It's kind of cheesy for some people,
(28:14):
but it says, you know, this certifies that Emery R.
Songer was you know, served his duty as a juror
in Douglas County, Nebraska or whatever. And we got that
and we were kind of debriefed. We were totally leave
our notes there. They're going to destroy all the notes.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
And then as we walked out, the state attorneys were
standing outside the door waiting for us to ask us, Okay,
so what's up. Why did you get to that verdict?
How did you get there? And I think it was
more not just because they were upset about it, but
they were like, what what were we missing.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
More like a if this is crude, I don't intend
it to be, but kind of like a film session,
kind of like what what was done here that made
you think that it was not guilty? Kind of let's
evaluate here, let's.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
If there was like if we could pick your brain
on what you needed to get to a guilty verse,
what was that? And that's the vibe. I god also,
and there were a few things and I think, you know,
the lack of that one witness was a big deal.
And they said she just there was no way we
could call her. We wanted to, but she wasn't available,
not not responding to calls or anything. It's just like, Okay,
(29:27):
that's weird.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
That could have been the make or break right there.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
It could have been at the same time, pathetically, at
the same time, I think that person was not available
for a pretty good reason that the story wasn't going
to line up properly enough to convict because there was
stuff that that individual had seen or said or done
that nobody else, including the police officer and the nurse
that were called to the stand, they didn't have the
(29:51):
exact same stories. They had slightly different variations of the story,
and it was one of those things where you're just
kind of like, you can't this. This absolutely has reasonable
doubt as to whether or not this guy did this,
you know what I mean, right, And we talked to
them probably five minutes, and then we left. As we
(30:12):
were leaving, I did not expect this either. We were
leaving the court the area where the courtroom doors are,
and there's a waiting room area next to those courtrooms
where I'm assuming when people go and they have like
a speeding ticket or something that they're trying to fight
these courtrooms are, they go in there and they talk
to a judge and whatever. So they're usually just random
(30:34):
people just kind of sitting in there as you're walking
in or walking out, showing up for their appearance in court.
And the defendant was there with his attorneys and the interpreters,
and he was standing there and there were tears in
his eyes as we were trying less kind of walking
past them, and he was just like, thank you, I
love you, thank you, I love you. And I was like, wow,
(30:56):
you know, it's you take this stuff very seriously, but
you don't in a lot of ways, and you're not
supposed to. In the moment, you can't be emotional about it,
But what was a great experience for me doing my
civic duty. It could have ended up being like the
worst day of this guy's life or one of the
worst days of his life. You know, like there was
a lot on the line for him and for the
attorneys also. You know, I'm not to say the attorneys
(31:17):
don't have something on the line too, but could you imagine.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
It's a paycheck versus their livelihood?
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah, like who knows what, you know, And we would
have committed to the guy if there was evidence to
do so. But you can just you kind of forget
how human a lot of this is from the different
roles that are being played. You know, it's a different
emotion when you're the judge. It's a different emotion when
you're an attorney. It's a different emotion when you're the
(31:43):
jury or a court reporter or the bailiff. If it's
different if you're the witness, one of the witnesses that
isn't directly related to the people of the case except
the fact that they responded to the call. They were
you know, they talked to the victim at so point,
but then the victim, who was not there by the
way on the second day and then the defendant, I mean, like,
(32:07):
this is their lives and things are you know, who
knows what's going to happen for them next. But it
kind of reminded me at the end there. It's just like, wow,
this there's a lot of human emotion in something like this,
and you put your trust into the citizens of you know,
the community to be as fair as possible. It's a
really important job. And if you can't do that fairly,
(32:31):
the best thing you could possibly do is just say
I can't do this fairly. And there were people on
that in that jury pool that said some really very
interesting things. I won't say what they said, but it
pretty much quickly disqualified them. Considering that this was a
foreign guy who was born out of this country's English
second language guy. A couple of people made it pretty
(32:52):
clear that they'd have a hard time believing a guy
like that.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Well, and that's important to recognize too, though, and that
that's an opinion and that somebody can have and that's okay,
But you made a point seeing this guy, he's saying,
thank you, I love you, think you I love you. Well,
you don't want somebody who's going to have a biased
opinion because of his nationality, because of where he's born,
or what speaks, what language he speaks, to negatively influence
(33:17):
the case for better or for worse, whatever that could be.
That's very interesting. And he made a good point too
about you know, you're there to be calculated and precise
in your decision making and not to be flooded with emotion.
You I've seen you. You are a thinker, you are a feeler,
but I think that you take pride in things like
(33:39):
that so much more. You know, like I can't want
to do it a good job. I heard that you
did this. We talked about it a little bit, and
I was like, you know what, it makes sense like
you you strike me as somebody that would take a
lot of pride in being on a jury panel because
you're very educated and you like to be fully thought
(34:01):
out in your decisions before you execute him. They I mean,
I think you're a perfect jury candidate.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Well, I appreciate you saying that I wouldn't volunteer myself
to be a full time juror by any means, but
with anybody, well maybe, yeah, And I know there are
a lot of people out there that are begging to
get onto a jury duty. You know, they love true
crime and all that stuff. Trust me, you're much more
likely to get picked if you don't want it. You know,
the gods of the American court system overlooking the people
(34:28):
of this country. They feel like you're going to get
the postcard if you really don't want to be there.
But when you are there, the best thing you can
do is embrace it, take it as seriously as possible,
and maybe you'll have a good experience. I feel good
about the experience itself because it's not something everybody gets
to do. And the fact that I had a case
that was interesting, right. It could have been a case
(34:53):
where a guy felt like a pothole damaged his car
and he was seeking, you know, a few thousand dollars
from the state, and you had to sit there and
listen to the way that oh yeah, I mean, could
you imagine? Right? And that's not to say people shouldn't
take that to court, but being on a jury having
to decide whether or not somebody deserves that seems like
a lot different than deciding Okay, this did or didn't happen.
(35:16):
With the domestic violence case, this is something that would
have been on like Law and Order, right, Yeah, you know,
it's not nearly a sensational some of the other law
and orders that you know they need to make to
be super entertaining for people to want to sit there
and watch for an hour. But it would have been
the type of case that was on a TV show
like that, So following along was pretty easy because there
(35:37):
weren't as many witnesses. But it was still an interesting
enough case where I was totally locked in. Everybody on
the jury was locked in, And I'm grateful that my
experience was with something like that and not, you know,
it could have been something else, right, And I have
no idea what the other option was, because there was another,
at least one more case that they were taking people
to be in a jury pool that morning of but
(35:59):
my name got called to go to the with the
first group or to one. Yeah, to this criminal case.
So there's jury duty, man. You I mean, you have
on your entire life to live. Who's to say when
or how many times you may get summoned. But I
think you'd enjoy it too.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
I think I would. I'm curious too, I would be
interested to give it a try. You know, I don't
know though, again it's not something that I'm yearning for.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And you shouldn't be. But like I said, it's one
of those things that's a responsibility. If you get too
excited to do it, I feel like it can become
performative in a way for someone it's more about you
being there than the case. And that's what I think.
That's why I think people who have an excitement to
be on the jury. They said this at the beginning
when the lawyers were like, Hey, we're figuring out who
(36:48):
we want to be on this jury. The quiet ones
are the ones that get picked. And I wasn't gonna
say anything until I got called on it, but there
were a couple of people that just would not stop talking.
They were very clearly like, I am talking myself out
of this by just being loud. I'm talking about my
history of domestic violence, I'm talking about my biases. And
(37:09):
it's good that they say that. But yes, you could
also get the vibe that a couple of those people
did not want to be committed to being on this
jury for any reason at all. But it was really
seven people. Only one of the seven that was picked
really felt like they talked much at all beyond one
or two times when they were called upon. So if
(37:31):
you really want to be on a jury, it shouldn't
be about you kind of making it about yourself and
about you being there. If you get the opportunity to
get called and then you're sitting there in a pool
of possible jurors, you being quiet and letting the conversation
kind of come to you will make it. I think
pretty likely that you're gonna be one of the people
(37:52):
that's going to land on that jury.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah, that's very interesting. I think about the movie Twelve
Angry Men. What a movie, you know, and it's it's
a slower film, but it's such an intricate film, and
I think that is is kind of cool. You know,
a lot of you said Law and Order, or there's
a there's a series that I've watched called Suits on
Netflix and it's about you know, a big shot lawyer, attorney,
(38:19):
you know, flying around town. But twelve every Man is
a really good film, old old school too and smoking,
and I just think that.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
That's Henry Henry Fonda in that movie. Yeah, and go
back and when you watch that, I don't want you
to get it's not as you're not gonna likely end
up on a case of that nature, especially in a
place like Douglas County. How often has there been, you know,
kind of a situation where you're gonna need a jury
(38:48):
of twelve in Douglas County for us, you know, six
people that end up in the deliberating room for the jury.
But it depends on the case, it depends on the rules.
I'm not gonna pretend like I'm some expert, but the
fact that you know, you see in the movie, and
I know it's a movie, but and it's really well made,
it's really a play. Pretty much the entire thing takes
(39:10):
place in just the one room. There's a very short,
shortendous Yeah, there's a very short kind of preamble in
the beginning in the courtroom where they are just like, okay,
now the jury's going to gore. You know, that's just
to set this, and then at the end when everybody's leaving,
the rest of the film is literally just in those
four walls, which makes it so gripping honestly to follow.
(39:33):
But they're talking about a murder case and whether not
in an individual In this case, a young man was
going to be sentenced to death, essentially for his role
in a murder, and it's interesting to see over the
course of it's really like an hour and a half
in the movie, but you're led to believe it's over
(39:55):
at least a few hours in that deliberating room where
all of these guys start to have to ask questions
of themselves, their own personal biases and prejudices, their own
opinions about like the information that they saw and the
(40:15):
way that they interpret that in the job that they
have as a jury when they're supposed to leave a
lot of that at the door, including their own personal experiences.
So I'm one hundred percent with you if you want
to get a good idea of what a jury is
supposed to look like. It's a bit sensationalized in that film,
but it's one of those movies that whenever it's on,
I'm sitting down like I'm watching it. It's incredible, especially
(40:38):
considering the fact that I just served on a jury.
So it was Fund's not the right word. It was
an interesting experience and I'm happy I got it, and
I think you would feel the same way if you
got that opportunity.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Definitely, I think I would too.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Hey, thanks for coming in and talking to me about Yeah,
of course.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
You know. I'm here in the building every day. Let
me know. I'll join you.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Let's sue it again sometime.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Absolutely, my man. All right.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
That is Peyton Hihlock. You can hear him with Gene
Stouthert from ten to eleven every morning. You can hear
him with Chris Baker two to six every afternoon on
eleven ten kfa B. I'm Emory Songer, so happy for
you to be listening to the Emery Songer Podcast. Thanks
for tuning in about my jury duty experience among other things,
and we will be back in this feed for you
next week. Have a great, safe weekend, and we will
(41:25):
chat with you again very soon.
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