PORT ANGELES — A review of an audiotaped Clallam County District Court 1 session involving a woman who objected to taking a juror’s oath Feb. 17 showed no signs of Judge Rick Porter verbally demeaning or humiliating the woman, as she and one of his opponents asserted in an story Friday in the Peninsula Daily News.
The oath became a campaign issue after Tim Davis, one of Porter’s challengers for the judge position, suggested at a League of Women Voters forum Tuesday that Porter humiliated the woman by making her sit in the jury box “all by herself” to question her about her concerns, saying that Porter’s actions were unnecessary.
Porter, 51, is running for re-election to a third term against Davis, a state assistant attorney general based in Port Angeles, and Pam Lindquist, a Port Angeles lawyer, in the Aug. 17 primary.
Gail Smith of Sequim, a juror in a driving-under-the-influence trial, said that her husband told her that Porter laughed when he read a note from her in court that had expressed her concerns about the word “God” in the juror’s oath affirming that she will tell the truth.
Porter does not laugh, snicker or in any way verbally demean the woman, according to the audiotape — a public record — reviewed Friday by the PDN.
Jurors say “I do” when a judge asks them if they will be truthful “so help you God.”
Smith raised the objection nearly two hours after it was administered.
Porter had read the note during a recess in which Smith had expressed her concerns.
When told of the tape of the note-reading on Friday, Smith’s husband, who had claimed he saw Porter laughing, “indicated maybe it was just smiling, when he read it,” Gail Smith said.
The PDN had interviewed Porter about the incident late Thursday afternoon, and he denied humiliating Smith.
But Porter was not asked to review Smith’s specific recollection of what happened, including the alleged laughter, and the PDN had not reviewed the tape.
Porter was not available for comment later Thursday evening to respond to her recollection because he was out ringing doorbells for his re-election campaign, he said Friday.
Porter said he felt vindicated after listening to the tape Friday.
“This is incontrovertible,” Porter said, again denying he humiliated Smith, saying the tape proved it, and adding he would have accommodated Smith by having her take a different oath without the word “God” in it had she made her concerns known when she took it.
He said his court is required by state law to administer an oath guaranteeing that jurors are truthful and that he has chosen one of two options, the one that includes “so help you God.” The other option omits those words.
“Historically, that’s the one that’s been used,” Porter said Saturday, adding he will offer jurors an option now that the oath has become an issue.
“We don’t want to offend anyone,” he said.
Smith had related the incident to the PDN on Thursday, adding that after the noon recess, Porter had her come into the courtroom with other court personnel and the public and made her sit in the jury box by herself while he asked her about her concerns.
“I felt consternation, I felt embarrassment, and I felt discriminated against,” she said.
Porter said Friday it is normal procedure to have a juror sit in the jury box alone during a discussion after a juror has raised issues about serving on the jury while a trial is in session.
Porter said he had no choice but to have Smith come into the courtroom, and that defense attorney Stan Myers and assistant city attorney Heidi Greenwood agreed.
“When a juror raises an issue like this, I have to bring her out in order to be sure she can still be fair and impartial,” Porter said.
Davis, who said he has not listened to the tape of the proceedings and heard about it second-hand, said Saturday that Smith called him after she read his comments in the PDN and told him she felt “humiliated” by the experience in Porter’s courtroom.
“If I said that, it was not about having to take the oath, it was about being singled out and being questioned rather than as a group,” Smith said Saturday.
“That would be the humiliation.”
Porter said he had no choice.
“That can be an intimidating thing for a juror, but we have to do it,” Porter said Saturday.
“We don’t want to taint the entire jury pool. You want to deal with the person who raises the issue. If you did it as group, it would taint the entire jury, which could result in a mistrial.”
In an e-mail, Myers emphasized that it was a joint decision among the attorneys and Porter to bring Smith into the courtroom.
“We decided amongst us to bring the juror out privately and ask her about it; mainly, to make sure that she could proceed as a fair and impartial juror,” Myers said.
“She was absolutely not humiliated in any way. She was treated with dignity and respect,” he added.
Smith, who said she is a secularist, said Porter should have given her the option to not say the phrase and that she was led to believe by Porter during the trial that it was required that she agree to affirm the “so help you God” part of the oath.
If Porter had any idea that Smith did not want to say the oath as administered, he would have allowed her to not say those words, Porter said.
“I had no way to know that unless she said something,” he said.
But by raising the accusation at the voters forum and without listening to the tape, it shows Davis is waging a “smear campaign” against Porter, Porter said Saturday.
“He’s found one tiny issue, which I had no way of resolving beforehand,” Porter said.
“There was nothing I did in that situation that was in the least bit wrong or inappropriate or that my demeanor in any way was inappropriate,” he said.
“This is nothing but a smear campaign by Mr. Davis,” Porter said.
“He should be apologizing to me for having made statements about my demeanor that are absolutely not true. He owes me a public apology.”
Davis said Saturday he will not say he’s sorry to Porter.
“I think that the individual in question felt humiliated and that’s what she said to me, and that was the information I received,” Davis said.
“As far as I am concerned, it turned out to be what she said and what she felt. I will decline his invitation.
“Mr. Porter should be apologizing to the juror,” Davis said, “because she is the one who’s been made to feel uncomfortable by this, not by anybody else. I’m not engaging in a smear campaign.”
Smith, who said she is retired, said she had been thinking during the trial about her concerns about having taken the oath.
She did not raise any concerns at the time the oath was administered because the process happened quickly, she said.
“They zoomed right in on something else,” Smith said, adding she had never been impaneled as a juror before Feb. 17.
“You get kind of timid in a large group. You don’t want to be singled out as a weirdo, be the odd man out in a new situation when you are trying to learn the ropes.”
Here’s how the oath reads in the instructions to District Court supplied by the state Administrative Office of the Courts:
“Do each of you solemnly swear or affirm that you will truthfully answer question about your qualifications to act as jurors in this case [, so help you God]?”
Ballots will be mailed Wednesday to more than 45,000 voters from the county line east of Sequim to west of Lake Crescent.
In judicial races, a candidate who garners 50 percent plus one vote or more wins the position, according to state law.
If not, the top two vote-getters advance to the Nov. 2 general election.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
