Jury Duty: The Whole Story
One of the first things you'll do as a potential juror (after taking the Metro and after not finding any coffee and after waiting in the security line behind this woman with not one, not two, but three switchblades and a mace gun and after the security guy makes you turn on your CD walkman and then makes a face at you because apparently your Will Taylor and Strings Attached CD isn't hardcore enough) is watch a video about jury duty hosted by your old friends Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer. Ed Bradley will tell you about the days where they used to drown people for justice. Diane Sawyer has a lot of hair.
Then you'll wait.
And wait.
And while you're already waiting, you might as well try waiting because once you've got that down? You'll wait some more.
Before you wait, though, you get to watch the parade of folks who are trying to get out of duty. These are Very Important People in suits and women with children who need changing and the two meth addicts who, for some reason, chose today to follow the rules. To get out of jury duty you have to stand in a line and explain to the permanently irritable woman why you need out of jury duty. And she will ask you why you waited a month to realize that you need out of jury duty. "Were you waiting to see if Europe was going to go somewhere?" she asked this one woman who had made inconvenient vacation plans. "Ma'am, you've had a month. I'll see what I can do, but maybe you'd best spend lunch at the library looking at picture books of the countries you're probably going to miss seeing. NEXT!" But the best of all was this Korean man who tried to explain that he didn't understand English well enough to be a juror.
I had no intention of missing jury duty. Besides at least one guilt-free day away from the office (the Permanently Irritable Woman told the tiniest Latino ever that, "If your employer even thinks about firing you for jury duty he'll have to deal with me and I am not a pleasant woman to deal with when you break the rules. NEXT!"), I was a little excited about participating in this process and watching our legal system in action. While I have no intention of serving my country in the military, I do take every opportunity to vote and figured this, too, counted as helping to make my country run.
I've never served on a jury before. I think I received a summons once when I lived in Portland, and if I did, then I'm positive that I didn't show up for it which makes me a Bad Citizen and you should take the previous paragraph where I mention "participating in this process" and "watching our legal system in action" and "I do take every opportunity to vote" with a grain of salt or, maybe, rather: a salt lick. Most of my insight into the "legal machine" as it were is like most everyone else's -- from television. And, because television has fucked us rawly in the ass again: it's nothing like that. First off, no Dylan McDermott (or is it Dermot Mulroney? I just call them Dermot McDermott, but most importantly: yes and please); secondly, no witness stand histrionics where someone leaps up and say, "Yeah, okay, I did it! It was me, not Johnny!"; and thirdly: motherfuck it was long.
We were on that jury for 19 years. Some of us died on that jury. (Or at least, some of us smelled like we died on that jury, and here's what I want to say about that: Hi, juror 12A? Nevermind. I don't even have words. But you, sir, are disgusting.) I mean, sure: at first we were all about being on the jury and we took copious notes but then by the second day we were pretty much just yadda-yadda-yadda-ing our way through most of the defense's case.
The case itself? A civil trial between a woman on a bicycle and a very, very old German guy. What was frustrating is that both sides spent an inordinate amount of time going over medical things like her ankle and her shoulder and when we all finally made it to the deliberation room, it only took us 8 minutes to reach a verdict because the first question on the juror's worksheet was, "Was the defendant negligent?" And since no, turns out, he wasn't (she was coming the wrong way and on the wrong side of the street, and he really did all he was capable of as a driver) -- we could have finished this puppy up on Monday. After we had reached our verdict, we hung out for another 10 minutes because we didn't want to look like premature adjudicators or anything. I learned a lot about one of my juror's love for Oprah. "And her production company? Harpo? That's O-p-r-a-h backwards and it's also the name of her husband in The Color Purple. But not really, because that was only a movie."
Surely this woman is Wisdom. And she is Good. And she is on a jury.
That's the issue, I guess, that I have with the jury system. And while yeah, it's funny, hearing stories about stupid girls loving Oprah -- these are the same people who get to decide everything from civil trials to important, life-or-death criminal proceedings. And because of network television and all those court procedurals, these are people who think it's going to be as easy as that. That the evidence will be incredibly cut and dry because of DNA and all of that. Or because of some dramatic courtroom finish. Honestly, the smelly guy (Juror 12A) said, "I really thought she would admit that her case was kinda flimsy after the defense poked all those holes." Like it works that way.
And finally, some last words on Juror 12A:
So, there's Juror 2 -- he's the first person and also the foreman. Then there's me (Juror 7), Juror 9, and then some other jurors I don't remember. And then, right behind me, is Juror 12A. And, as has been said a number of times, Juror 12A smelled like parboiled ass. Soaked in urine. Doused in beer. I'm not the only one who notices this, by the way. Juror 9 next to me -- the one who loves Oprah ("She's just so, you know. She's. I don't even know how to say how great she is because she's just so, you know, great." Exact. Fucking. Quote.) -- she keeps sniffing periodically. Sniffing and looking my way. So I try to show that I smell it too, and that it's not me. I end up sniffing so much that Juror 2 offers me a Kleenex. Finally, after the lunch break I took Juror 9 aside and said, "Dude, it's totally not me." And she said, "Thank God." And then we both spent the remainder of the trail perched precariously on the edge of our seats. We were the most attentive jurors ever. Or at least, that's how we looked.
Then you'll wait.
And wait.
And while you're already waiting, you might as well try waiting because once you've got that down? You'll wait some more.
Before you wait, though, you get to watch the parade of folks who are trying to get out of duty. These are Very Important People in suits and women with children who need changing and the two meth addicts who, for some reason, chose today to follow the rules. To get out of jury duty you have to stand in a line and explain to the permanently irritable woman why you need out of jury duty. And she will ask you why you waited a month to realize that you need out of jury duty. "Were you waiting to see if Europe was going to go somewhere?" she asked this one woman who had made inconvenient vacation plans. "Ma'am, you've had a month. I'll see what I can do, but maybe you'd best spend lunch at the library looking at picture books of the countries you're probably going to miss seeing. NEXT!" But the best of all was this Korean man who tried to explain that he didn't understand English well enough to be a juror.
I had no intention of missing jury duty. Besides at least one guilt-free day away from the office (the Permanently Irritable Woman told the tiniest Latino ever that, "If your employer even thinks about firing you for jury duty he'll have to deal with me and I am not a pleasant woman to deal with when you break the rules. NEXT!"), I was a little excited about participating in this process and watching our legal system in action. While I have no intention of serving my country in the military, I do take every opportunity to vote and figured this, too, counted as helping to make my country run.
I've never served on a jury before. I think I received a summons once when I lived in Portland, and if I did, then I'm positive that I didn't show up for it which makes me a Bad Citizen and you should take the previous paragraph where I mention "participating in this process" and "watching our legal system in action" and "I do take every opportunity to vote" with a grain of salt or, maybe, rather: a salt lick. Most of my insight into the "legal machine" as it were is like most everyone else's -- from television. And, because television has fucked us rawly in the ass again: it's nothing like that. First off, no Dylan McDermott (or is it Dermot Mulroney? I just call them Dermot McDermott, but most importantly: yes and please); secondly, no witness stand histrionics where someone leaps up and say, "Yeah, okay, I did it! It was me, not Johnny!"; and thirdly: motherfuck it was long.
We were on that jury for 19 years. Some of us died on that jury. (Or at least, some of us smelled like we died on that jury, and here's what I want to say about that: Hi, juror 12A? Nevermind. I don't even have words. But you, sir, are disgusting.) I mean, sure: at first we were all about being on the jury and we took copious notes but then by the second day we were pretty much just yadda-yadda-yadda-ing our way through most of the defense's case.
The case itself? A civil trial between a woman on a bicycle and a very, very old German guy. What was frustrating is that both sides spent an inordinate amount of time going over medical things like her ankle and her shoulder and when we all finally made it to the deliberation room, it only took us 8 minutes to reach a verdict because the first question on the juror's worksheet was, "Was the defendant negligent?" And since no, turns out, he wasn't (she was coming the wrong way and on the wrong side of the street, and he really did all he was capable of as a driver) -- we could have finished this puppy up on Monday. After we had reached our verdict, we hung out for another 10 minutes because we didn't want to look like premature adjudicators or anything. I learned a lot about one of my juror's love for Oprah. "And her production company? Harpo? That's O-p-r-a-h backwards and it's also the name of her husband in The Color Purple. But not really, because that was only a movie."
Surely this woman is Wisdom. And she is Good. And she is on a jury.
That's the issue, I guess, that I have with the jury system. And while yeah, it's funny, hearing stories about stupid girls loving Oprah -- these are the same people who get to decide everything from civil trials to important, life-or-death criminal proceedings. And because of network television and all those court procedurals, these are people who think it's going to be as easy as that. That the evidence will be incredibly cut and dry because of DNA and all of that. Or because of some dramatic courtroom finish. Honestly, the smelly guy (Juror 12A) said, "I really thought she would admit that her case was kinda flimsy after the defense poked all those holes." Like it works that way.
And finally, some last words on Juror 12A:
So, there's Juror 2 -- he's the first person and also the foreman. Then there's me (Juror 7), Juror 9, and then some other jurors I don't remember. And then, right behind me, is Juror 12A. And, as has been said a number of times, Juror 12A smelled like parboiled ass. Soaked in urine. Doused in beer. I'm not the only one who notices this, by the way. Juror 9 next to me -- the one who loves Oprah ("She's just so, you know. She's. I don't even know how to say how great she is because she's just so, you know, great." Exact. Fucking. Quote.) -- she keeps sniffing periodically. Sniffing and looking my way. So I try to show that I smell it too, and that it's not me. I end up sniffing so much that Juror 2 offers me a Kleenex. Finally, after the lunch break I took Juror 9 aside and said, "Dude, it's totally not me." And she said, "Thank God." And then we both spent the remainder of the trail perched precariously on the edge of our seats. We were the most attentive jurors ever. Or at least, that's how we looked.
posted by Mike at 3:16 PM
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