I’m not sure why I was kind of excited when I got called to serve on a jury. Maybe it’s because I never got to serve our country in the military or in any other meaningful way. Maybe I was curious to know if I would actually get seated for the jury, since I’d heard that attorneys do not like to have professionals on their juries. Or maybe I was just channeling the old Henry Fonda movie Twelve Angry Men, and hoping I could bring reason and order to a group of eleven of my peers.
I got to Federal District court in downtown about five minutes late. There were about 80 or 90 people in the room already. They were busy filling out their forms or drinking the free coffee or eating the free bagels and doughnuts up front. It looked like a pretty diverse group to me, even though I assumed the selection from among registered voters was totally random.
The person in charge of getting us organized was wonderful. She was funny, clear in her instructions, and generally put a positive spin on the whole affair. I had expected a tired, bored bureaucrat. Instead I got a federal employee who clearly enjoyed her job and was not on a power trip. She was even forgiving when I realized I’d left my reading glasses on the table at home, and she allowed me to call my wife to bring them down to the court house. She called the security guards up front to let them know to expect her.
When we finally got into the courtroom, the crowd became solemn. There hadn’t been a lot of jocularity prior to this moment, but whatever fun people had been having with asides and rolling eyes simply ceased when we entered the room. It was fairly recently remodeled in a style that was neither ostentatious nor tacky. Some people sat in the jury box and most of us sat where the public would sit during the trial.
The judge was a white male who appeared to be in his early to mid 50s. He had a sense of purpose and a sense of humor. He thanked us for the first of many times for being here to perform our civic duty, and then began the long process of explaining how the jury selection would work. Eventually he made it clear to all of us that he wanted us to stand up and say so if we had any doubts about whether we could be impartial in this case. Some of us probably came into the room scheming about what we could say to get ourselves excused from the trial. It became clear as the judge continued his instructions and then questions of us that what he really needed for us to do was to simply tell the truth. If we had a legitimate excuse why we should not be on the jury, he would listen.
The first person he excused was a woman whose 90-year old mother was in the hospital. He wished her luck. The second was a woman in her twenties who explained that her husband had just left her with two children and she didn’t think she could concentrate because she was emotionally distraught. Other people voiced their reasons for conflicts, and the judge listened with interest but did not excuse them. Most of these people either needed to provide child care or had an important business meeting during the week.
His questions kept coming, slowly but surely. Did we have a relative or friend who was in prison? If so, could we look at the entire judicial system without a jaundiced eye? Had we been on jury duty before, and did the process or the outcome turn us off to the point where we could not go through it again without rancor? Did we know the defendant, the attorneys, the witnesses, or the company that had allegedly been wronged by the defendant? Did we have a family member or friend in law enforcement? If so, could we listen to the testimony of a law enforcement officer without thinking he was more likely to tell the truth just because he wore a badge? Two FBI agents were set to testify.
The questions were designed to make it clear that if for any reason we thought we’d be unable to be impartial in this matter, we needed to speak up. We went from thinking that if we said the right thing, we’d get excused from the jury to hoping he would not ask a question that would get us excused from the jury. At least that’s what was going through my mind.
Then the judge said that for us to be effective jurors, we had to be able to answer the following question: If the roles were reversed and we were sitting at the front table as the defendant, would we be the kind of person we would want to sit in judgment of us? If the answer was no, we needed to say why now, not after we were seated as part of the jury and the trial was underway.
Finally a fact was revealed that made me question my ability to be impartial. The defendant had been accused of committing mail fraud by billing an insurance company for losses incurred by a trucking company and not giving the insurance proceeds to that company. (He was also accused of lying to the FBI agents who questioned him about the alleged mail fraud.) The insurance company was one in which I once owned an amount of stock that was significant to me. I knew I had to reveal this to the judge and attorneys.
I had listened as my peers told the judge varying tales of woe. One man stood up and said that his son had just been convicted of child pornography and had begun to serve a thirty-year sentence. He said his son was also awaiting trial on charges of child abuse. When the judge said “this must be very difficult for you,” the man said in a matter-of-fact tone “I just wish I could be alone with him for ten minutes.” You had to wonder what the father was feeling. Was it anger, remorse, guilt over failing to instill the proper values in his son, or a combination of all three? It wasn’t quite an O’Henry story, but it was close to the pathos that I remembered feeling as I read those stories.
I was not about to tell my story in front of a room full of 100 people. So I requested a sidebar, which allowed me to go up to the judge’s platform and speak with him and the attorneys without being heard by the rest of the crowd. The judge even had some pre-recorded music to play during the sidebar to make it even more difficult for others to hear the conversation.
When I revealed my issue, the questions came at me like bullets. Did I think the case might have affected the value of my stock? Not, I said, if the loss was an insignificant number, as the market would not react to a minor fraud loss. Would I think the value of the company had been diminished? Yes, I replied, unless the company had recovered the full amount of the cash it had paid out because it had allegedly been defrauded by the defendant. Did I think I could be impartial because of all of this?
Normally I am quick with a reaction to a question. Some would say I think with my mouth. In this case, I had to stop and think. This was the crucial moment in my involvement in the case. Part of me wanted to say that I could not remain impartial. I had plenty to do back at the office, and it was not going to go away just because I was doing my duty at the courtroom. The other part of me wanted to say that I could remain impartial because I wanted to be on that jury, damn it. I was infatuated at this point with the process, the pure professionalism of it, and the chance to be part of making a decision that would mean something to the people involved. I probably saw Jimmy Stewart flash in my mind’s eye.
What I said was “Look, I’m a Libra. I can balance both sides of any argument.” The attorneys exchanged slight smiles as the judge thanked me for bringing this to his attention. Just like that, I was back in my seat.
The judge excused us from the court room and said they would have a jury selected and seated by 1 p.m., and then the rest of us would be free to go. Since this was the last week we could be called for jury duty and this was the only case to go to trial in the court this week, those of us who were not seated were truly done with jury duty until fate hit our number again.
I went outside for some fresh air and realized I’d joined all of the smokers out in front of the court house. One of them was talking to a friend on her cell phone and I overheard her say “God, I hope they don’t choose me, because I am in way over my head.” I realized that I was strangely aware of and focused on the details of what was happening in the court room and wanted very much to be part of the jury to keep this intellectual stimulation going.
When we sat back down, the judge began to call off the names of the twelve people who would constitute the jury and the two alternates who would also participate in the trial. I think I knew as he started to call the names that mine would not be one of them. And I was right. None of the people who had spoken up during the question and answer session were called. The law of large numbers had proven itself once again. Ninety registered voters who showed up that morning were more than enough to provide a pool of fourteen people who were truly convinced that they could be impartial in this case. And that’s justice in action.
Comments