Summoned to duty: How did I find myself entangled with all this unpleasantness? Well, as a good citizen I had simply registered to vote. That was all it took to set the bureaucratic wheels turning. In those days my wife and I were subletting a friend’s apartment, having recently finished our schooling and just embarked on our professional lives: My wife was working as a grassroots political organizer, and I was trying to turn my doctoral dissertation into a book, in the hopes of finding a teaching job. We were both very busy, so I was plenty irritated when the notice came through the mail slot informing me that I was required to turn up for jury duty at the court building just south of where we lived. I grumbled but I went, and sat around in the vast waiting area for a day or so as names were pulled out of a big lottery roller and people were shuffled off to the different courtrooms. When my name came up, I still thought it was unlikely I would actually end up on a jury because every potential juror was required to go through a process known as voir dire, in which the lawyers and judge ask a set of questions to get a “feel” for one’s suitability to serve on the case. There are various ways to get bumped from the process (for instance, if you say you are a racist or too afraid, or if you already have a strong opinion about the case), and I assumed I would be deemed unsuitable in one way or another. But no. Even though I answered many questions in an opinionated way (for instance, I said that I objected to the death penalty and that I was not sure I could in good conscience convict a defendant who might be put to death by the state), I was kept on to serve, and indeed, made the head of my jury of 12 very different Americans: four men, eight women; nine whites, two blacks, and a Hispanic; about half under age 30; about half professionals of one sort or another. We would get to know each other very well over the three weeks that followed. It is impossible for me to rehearse all the twists and turns of the testimony we heard, or to reproduce the intensity of the four days we spent together in sequestered deliberations about our verdict. In serious cases such as ours, it is not uncommon for juries to be kept in something like state custody as they work to achieve consensus about the case — and so we were not allowed to go home and not allowed to talk with our families throughout the 66 hours of our final decision making. We were escorted to our meals by armed court officers and kept in hotels overnight, attended by guards. All this was much more than a cheerful civics lesson; it was a disorienting encounter with the power of the state and the ugly matter at hand. In our crucible, behind the closed doors of the jury room, we struggled to understand our responsibilities and to make sense of a vast amount of conflicting and complicated evidence. There were tears and fights, soulful silences, talks about God and gays and truth and justice. It was democratic deliberation raised to the level of an extreme sport. photos.state.gov/libraries/korea/49271/dwoa_122709/ewoa_0709.pdf
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 12:43:04 +0000
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