Wiretapping of the Democratic Party's headquarters. E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, who led the Watergate break-in team, were stationed in a Watergate Hotel room while the burglary was underway. A lookout was posted across the street at the Howard Johnson Hotel.
The judge, however, remains above the fray, providing an independent and impartial assessment of the facts and how the law applies to those facts. Many criminal cases - and almost all civil ones - are heard by a judge sitting without a jury. The judge is the trier of fact, deciding whether the evidence is credible and which witnesses are telling the truth.
But an alternate juror who sat through the trial from the beginning can simply take the place of a dismissed or ill juror. Duties of Alternative Jurors. An alternate juror who might be called upon to move into an empty spot on the jury must follow all the rules that regular jurors follow.