MA: both sides now

From the Worcester Telegram & Gazette:

Jury duty an eye-opener for lawyer - Court system gains new respect

Somehow, his fellow jurors figured out on their own that John J. Roemer was a lawyer. Maybe it was the fact that the court personnel they encountered all seemed to know him, some even addressing him by his first name...

Mr. Roemer, a public defender in the Worcester office of the state Committee for Public Counsel Services for the last 20 years, said he walked away with a fresh perspective on the time-honored system of trial by jury...

Never before... had he been given the opportunity to sit as a juror... “I really wanted to learn what goes on in the jury room and this was the best training seminar I ever attended,” Mr. Roemer said.

He plans to share his observations with young public defenders in a training manual titled “Both Sides Now: What An Indigent Defense Lawyer Learned Upon Becoming a Gentleman of the Jury.”