My Life as a Juror, Part One

(Okay, so it really should be "My DAY as a Juror." That just doesn't have the same ring to it. So I took some, you know, editorial liberties with the title.)


Yesterday was a beautiful, gorgeous, warm spring day, and I spent most of it caged up in a windowless courtroom, doing my civic duty. It was an interesting and educational experience, and ultimately a... well… I shouldn’t get too far ahead of myself here.


I’d been selected for this jury and another back at the beginning of April and, up until a few days prior, had almost kind of sort of been looking forward to it. I mean, think about it: I’d get to put on nice clothes and go somewhere and interact with other grown-ups and listen to intelligent courtroom dialogue (um, we’ll revisit that thought a little later) and participate in thoughtful discussions and help to make crucial decisions that would profoundly impact the lives of other people.


Well, okay. That last part made the whole thing a little scary. But then again, this was district court, where all the cases are misdemeanors and jail terms do not exceed one year. It wasn’t like I’d be helping to put somebody away for life or put some hardened criminal back on the streets or anything like that.


(Parenthetical Thought: It did occur to me that looking forward to jury duty as an opportunity to do something important and interesting with other adults is a little pathetic. It is probably a sign that I do, in fact, need a life. But hey. Jury duty would be a new experience, something different from the norm, and you know, variety is the spice of life and all that. Tell me I’m not pathetic for feeling positive about the chance to do something different, with a significance beyond my own four little walls.)


Anyway. As the time for the back-to-back trials approached, I found myself feeling much less anticipatory and much more apprehensive. Not just because jury duty disrupts the flow of my work week and requires extra preparation and arrangements-- I do, after all, have a job of some importance right here at home-- but because it is, well, heavy stuff. Receiving and concealing stolen property may not be a felony, but it is still a crime, and a year in jail is still a year in jail. And drunk driving is no small issue, either. What qualifies little old unassuming me to make decisions in such matters? Then again, somebody has to do it.


As it turns out, the receiving-&-concealing case was settled beforehand and never actually came to trial. That is not unusual; in fact, I’m told that it happens far more often than not in this court. (Of course, I didn’t get to find that out until the night before the scheduled trial, because that’s how jury duty rolls. I happily adjusted.) I wasn’t so lucky with the drunk-driving case… not that I thought I would be. The hard-hitting, intensely-questioning defense attorney in that case had made it perfectly clear that his client, as a Canadian arrested on a DWI while in the U.S. on business, had much at stake. It didn't seem likely to me that they'd settle out of court, and they didn't.


Oh, but it would have been so easy for me to have gotten off that jury in the first place. There is always a questioning process once the jury is selected, to give the lawyers opportunity to weed out those whom they, for whatever reason, don’t want on the jury. I, in all honesty, had itsy-bitsy negative thoughts about the defendant the moment I set eyes on him. All I’d have had to do was remark to the lawyer that “he looks guilty to me,” and I can almost guarantee you, I’d have been out of there.


Okay, that was kind of a joke. I wouldn’t have said that. I am able to set aside personal biases and opinions and be objective. Still, I came that close to not having to be on that jury. Each lawyer can dismiss up to three jurors (who would then be replaced by someone else in the pool) without apparent cause-- just because they don't like the size of your nose, or whatever; they don't have to give a reason. The defense attorney had grilled us all relentlessly about pretty much every irrelevant matter under the sun… and he had seemed to pick on me in particular. He’d even told me to just say so if I didn’t really want to be on that jury. Well, I didn’t, really-- all that interesting and significant stuff aside, who really wants to do jury duty?-- but I wasn’t about to be a shirker. I was willing. Still, I'd thought for certain that he’d dismiss me anyway.


He didn’t. Our jury of seven was deemed “satisfactory” by both lawyers, and we were given our slips and told to report back four weeks later for the trial. And so followed the weeks of angst and expectancy and trepidation, each in its turn, and then the night-before phone call to the courthouse recording confirming that the trial was indeed to proceed.


So there I was on this beautiful sunny day, locked with six strangers behind multiple sets of heavy doors in a room with bad coffee and mediocre donuts and not a single window, waiting for the trial to begin.


And here I stop, leaving you hanging until Part Two… because this post is already long enough, and because I am just mean like that, and because I want to pretend that you have all even made it this far and will be going insane with curiosity and anticipation.