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Mindstates
Jury Duty: A Humbled Perspective
by Patricia Alfano
There are several things I dread seeing in my mailbox: a doctor’s bill, an invitation to another birthday party for my 86-year-old Aunt LuLu in New Jersey, and a jury summons. Recently I received them all. I disputed the bill, called Aunt LuLu and declined, and began plotting a strategy to get out of the summons.
Stanford University’s Hoover Institution states that over one million Americans serve as jurors on state courts every year. However, according to The Economist, half of all Californians called for jury duty ignore the summons.
As I held the notice in my hand, I realized I was probably more qualified than anyone to sit on a jury. My mind did a slow fade and morphed back to my childhood. In a dingy courtroom in Philadelphia, I’m sitting in the gallery next to my grandfather, a community organizer and advocate for immigrants coming to America from Italy.
A spiritual man, my grandfather was always ready with words of wisdom and philosophical parables to answer my seemingly endless questions, which is why I followed him everywhere—including political conventions and court cases—instead of going to the playground or park.
The vivid memory continues as the scene unfolds in my mind. I’m holding my grandfather’s hand and watching a judge swing his gavel high into the air before slamming it down hard.
“99 years!” he shouts. “Does the defendant have anything to say?”
The defendant is a short, stocky man with thinning hair and dark olive skin that had taken on a grayish hue. His black bushy eyebrows cover his eyes like awnings and he has a dark mole on his cheek that dances as his facial muscles twitch. He is shackled and manacled as he attempts to adjust his posture before the judge. Throwing his head back, his chest out and peering down his nose, he replies in a thick accent.
“Judge,” he pauses, “noan-a be stingy. Give 100!”
With his words still hanging in the air, the man is led out of the courtroom.
I watch my grandfather shake his head and lower it as he fingers the brim of the hat he holds in his lap. A lock of his thick hair falls on his sweaty forehead and his sad eyes reflect more than he could tell me at my tender age.
My attention snaps back to the jury notice in my hand. I am annoyed. I just started a new job. I am going to have to rearrange my schedule, transportation and work. “We the People” can be a huge pain when we get in trouble with the law, I think to myself.
The day I report for my civic duty, my schedule is still in disarray and I’m even more perturbed. Entering the courthouse, I pass through the security check and make my way to the jury lounge. Time immediately begins to stand still. Three hours have already passed since my appointed time and I am getting fidgety.
Trying to make the best of the situation and amuse myself, I begin people-watching. There is a huge guy sitting next to me who is fast asleep and snoring with his mouth open and eyes rolled back in his head. A muscular woman with a five-o’clock shadow doesn’t respond to my greeting. I see a scrawny, wild-eyed man going in and out of the door, talking to himself. Then there is this guy who is preaching, and immediately clears a 15-foot distance around himself as the other potential jurors back away.
It is close to the end of the day before I finally hear my assigned number called and I enter the courtroom. I catch a glimpse of the defendant. He is a slender young man with dark hair and magnetically beautiful eyes. He is wearing a white shirt that is too large for him. His lawyer has his arm around him and is whispering. The potential jurors are told that an illegal drug was found in his vehicle during a routine traffic stop.
I glance around the room and notice the defendant’s family quietly sitting alone. The father, though old and withered, bears a resemblance to his son. The cuffs of his pants are torn, and his shoes are worn thin. A worried mother with two younger children sits next to him. I feel my irritation melt into compassion as I ponder their world that exists beyond my own cocoon.
The jury selection proceeds and creeps closer to where I am sitting. Several people voice their protest over being asked to sit on a drug-related case as they disagree with the fact that drugs are criminalized. A tattooed woman stands and lectures the lawyers, judge, and everyone else in the courtroom about the medicinal attributes of marijuana. She is told to sit down, but continues talking for another 10 minutes. She is finally excused. Another hour goes by before the last alternate is chosen from the row in front of me and I am free to go.
In the cool air, I walk down the street to the trolley station, trying to sort through the experience in my mind. I think about whether or not my being on the jury would have made a difference. I remember the old man’s face and wonder if the family will survive. Would there be someone like my grandfather to help them? The image of the young defendant, his head hung low and his eyes caste downward is burned in my memory.
I stop, mull things over, and glance out the window as the trolley leaves the station. I remember that we Americans are a people who all come together in times of crisis regardless of race, color or creed; that when someone is hurt, we all run to help; that basically we are a fair-minded society; and that jury duty can be more than a dreaded piece of mail.
Patricia Alfano lives in beautiful Ocean Beach, California and works at a local university. Contact her at pat_alfano@hotmail.com or visit her blog at www.bohemianopus.com.