San Diego police Officer Frank White spent five hours on the witness stand last week. But neither the prosecution nor the defense attorney asked him why, during a confrontation with another driver, he didn't roll down his window before he fired his gun through the glass.

A juror posed the question.

The jurors hearing White's felony criminal case had a couple of more questions for the 29-year-old officer, who is accused of shooting a woman and her child during a parking lot encounter while off duty on March 15, 2008.

The practice of allowing jurors to ask questions of witnesses has created a buzz in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Harry Elias, who is among the few judges in North County who will tell a jury that they should feel free to submit written questions to him.

And submit they do. How it will affect White's case remains to be seen, but many of the jurors hearing his case appear eager to submit their queries for witnesses.

The officer is accused of gross negligent discharge of a firearm, wounding the driver of the other car, Rachel Silva, and her then-8-year-old son. White was driving to the market with his wife at the time.

Silva is said to have tailgated White's car and threatened to ram it during a bizarre pursuit in an Oceanside parking lot following a perceived slight on the road.

She had alcohol, marijuana and methamphetamine in her system, blood tests showed.

The panel wanted one witness asked whether methamphetamine and marijuana in a person's system can affect the absorption rate of alcohol; it does not, was the reply.

They asked another witness, a woman who said she had a similar 2003 road rage run-in with Silva, what Silva did after throwing a punch at her.

Silva left the scene, was the response.

'A window into a juror's mind'

Letting the jury ask questions of witnesses has been permissible in California for years.

But in 2007, the Judicial Council of California, the state body that runs the courts, changed the rules to not only allow the practice, but to encourage judges to tell the jury that it can ask questions.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor is a big proponent of the practice.

She sat on a committee that recommended the Judicial Council endorse the practice.

"I have talked to thousands of jurors," Connor said Friday, "and they say they may not ask a question, but the fact that they are able to makes them feel engaged, makes them part of the process."

What's more, she said, "it is a window into a juror's mind."

The practice has a cautious supporter in Michael Crowley, the immediate past president of the San Diego Criminal Defense Bar Association.

"I am enthusiastic about it myself, but I can tell you that there are mixed opinions in the criminal defense bar," Crowley said Friday.

There are fears, he said, that one or two jurors will ask all the questions, inadvertently setting themselves up in a leadership role before deliberations.

Or perhaps, he said, jurors will form opinions by asking questions before the defense gets a chance to share its side of the story.

But on the flip side, he said, the practice has a pretty big benefit.

Jurors, he said, start out as "a tabula rasa, a blank slate."

And the attorneys, after working on the case for months or years before trial, sometimes "are totally missing the forest for the trees and a (jury) question can get it back on track."

Such questioning by juries is standard operating procedure in a military court-martial, seen during the war crimes trials at Camp Pendleton in recent years.

But it is rare enough in civilian jury trials that even experienced court watchers have been taken aback watching jurors in the White trial submit questions.

A stack of questions

This is not new for Elias; it is a practice the North County-based judge has had in place for years.

He was not available to comment Friday as to why he allows it and what sort of effect he thinks it has.

Here's how the process has worked at White's trial: At the end of testimony by a witness, but before the witness leaves the stand, jurors can submit written questions to the courtroom bailiff, who then hands the note to the attorneys.

If neither side has any quibble with the query, the bailiff hands it to Elias, who then asks the question if he finds it passes legal muster.

If either the prosecutor or defense attorney has a problem with the question, they have a private, on-the-record discussion with Elias out of the presence of the jury.

Afterward, Elias either will ask the question or tell the jury that it is a question he cannot ask that particular witness.

At this point, it is unclear which questions are not asked. All the notes with the questions become part of the public record, and are available for public review at the end of the case.

In White's trial, there promises to be a stack of them -- and not just from one panel member. About half of the jurors have posed written questions so far.

The audience in the courtroom tends to perk up on hearing the jury questions, eager for any hint as to what appears to be important to panel members.

For White, the panel asked him why he didn't roll down his window before firing his gun.

White replied that he hadn't thought of it.

One panel member wanted to know if he heard Silva's tires screeching or if she was yelling at him as he was shouting "Police! Stop!" to identify himself as a cop.

White said he did not recall tires screeching, but remembered that she was "constantly screaming."

The jury had as many questions, if not more, for a police training officer who testified about what police are taught.

Jurors asked San Diego police Sgt. Dan Vega whether police are trained to protect themselves or the public first.

Essentially, it's a tie; they are taught to preserve all human life, but the officer needs to protect himself, Vega said.

The jury also wanted to know if Vega had been White's instructor at the local police academy.

Vega said he had been teaching at the academy when White attended, but did not recall White specifically from among his many trainees.

Testimony in White's trial is scheduled to wrap up Monday.

Call staff writer Teri Figueroa at 760-740-5442.