BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Usually a witness during a trial steps down after prosecutors and defense attorneys have asked their questions.

But in Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Clyde Jones' court witnesses aren't necessarily through after prosecutors and defense attorneys sit down. Jurors get a crack at asking a few questions too.

At this week's arson trial of former Birmingham Police Officer Curtis Jeffrey Thornton, who a jury this afternoon found guilty on all charges related to six fires, Jones had allowed the jurors to question witnesses.



A few attorneys who had listened in on testimony this week said they had never seen jurors ask questions of witnesses, which this week also included Thornton.

Jones said he believes he is the only local judge who allows juries to ask questions. He added he would like to see other judges do it.

The word "verdict" means "true saying," Jones said. "We want juries to get it right and I think allowing juries to ask questions help them to get it right," he said.

Jones said he allows jurors to ask question in about 80 percent of the cases that come before him, Jones said.

The one type of case he doesn't allow juror questions is in sex-related cases, Jones said. That prevents victims from being put under even more embarrassment or duress, he said.

"I tell jurors if you have a burning question in your mind then I will allow you to ask it," Jones said.

So far, Jones said, allowing jurors to ask questions has not benefited one side or another. "We get as many not-guilty verdicts as we get guilty verdicts," he said.

Jones said that as a former prosecutor and former defense attorney he had always thought jurors should also be allowed to ask questions. "As an attorney talking to jurors after a verdict, they often went back (into deliberations) and had questions in their mind," he said.

So after he became a judge in 2002, Jones said he started researching cases where jurors had been allowed to ask questions.

In about 2004 or 2005 he began allowing juries on a limited basis to ask questions. Several times attorneys appealed the use of that practice, but the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed its use, he said.

One way it can be done is to allow jurors to write down their questions and then the judge decides which ones to ask, Jones said. But the way Jones said he chooses to do it is by telling the witness not to answer a question until after he has determined whether the question is admissible.

On Monday, before jury selection began, defense attorney Brett Hamock had asked the judge to not allow jurors to ask questions in Thornton's trial. Jones, however, denied that motion.

Hamock and the prosecutors in the case declined comment after today's verdict about jurors being allowed to ask questions.

Jurors, however, said afterwards that they were surprised at being allowed to ask questions.

"That was great," one juror said as he got onto an elevator after the verdict. Other jurors nodded in agreement. Jurors declined to give their names.

Jurors asked some questions seemingly to clarify statements witnesses had made, but some were more probing queries to get information that had not been addressed.

For example, Warrior Police Detective George Billets testified that Thornton pointed the finger at a neighbor as a suspect in a fire. Billets said the man who Thornton had named as the suspect did have two cigarette lighters in a pants pocket when he questioned the man a short time after the fire. The man, however, was quickly eliminated as a suspect and Thornton eventually became the suspect, the detective said.

A juror asked if the man was a smoker. After getting permission to answer from Jones, Billets told the juror that yes, the man was a smoker.