Sitting in the jury room, waiting for the supervisor to bellow my name loudly over the intercom, I spotted an acquaintance from my baseball days. We struck up a conversation. Our chat distracted us, for a time, from the stale coffee stench wafting through the long, narrow room filled with old theater bucket seats that were jammed with overcoat clad citizens reading papers and filling in crosswords and catching a few quick winks before performing their civil duty. We laughed, we hugged, and then we ventured on to our designated courtrooms with 40 other jurors to suffer through voir dire.
Ill-prepared public defenders stammered through lists of hypothetical situations rather than asking questions because they just wanted to know if we would decide on a guilty or a not-guilty verdict. But the judge had clearly ordered us not to begin to form an opinion about the case. We had not heard the facts. No witnesses had testified. We were not to decide or even maybe start to think about the fate of the bearded, black man in the blue, collared shirt who looked sternly at us from under his heavy eyelids. He clearly wanted to smile. I wanted to smile at him, in fact. I wanted him to think that maybe for a minute, everything was going to be alright.
As I looked at the man minute after minute, I wanted to know his story and I wanted him to tell it. I wanted the suits to stop chewing at my ears for a moment with their legal rhetoric so the man could talk and just tell us what happened. But he would not speak. Not yet. First there were questions for us that had to be answered to determine if we were fit to hear his story. The prosecuting attorney squealed over and over again, "If you only have the testimony of a police officer, do you think you could find this man guilty?"
I wanted to yell, "I don't know! I don't know his story yet. I don't want to hear it from you or from a police officer. I want to hear him tell me his story and then you can tell me what happened and then I will decide."
But they kept talking in circles, painting giant pictures of nothing, and asking the same questions one hundred twenty-seven times until I thought my ears might bleed. And then the defense attorney returned. Grinning awkwardly, he asked how we were and he started in again with the hypotheticals. If this, then could you? THEN COULD I WHAT? I don't know the story.
No, I won't believe just one witness testimony. Yes, I need physical evidence. Yes I am related to a police officer. But yes, I do believe that some officers lie because they are, after all, human beings. They are real people just like us and just like the man sitting at the table in the blue shirt who is alleged to have committed crimes that to some of us...
Don't seem like that big of a deal.
Was it one joint or twenty? I mean, if it was one, perhaps he was just going to chill at home after a long day at work or share it with a friend. If it was twenty, maybe he was going to distribute. It doesn't matter, they said. Even one is illegal. 20 of the 40 prospective jurors rolled their eyes. Some chuckled.
"Do you own a TV?" asked the pretty, young prosecutor. "So you possess it. Do you have your TV with you right now? No. But you still possess it."
I was screaming inside my own head the entire time. This is crazy. Why is she trying to convince me to think like her? And why are those defense attorneys seemingly so inept?
We finally reached day two of voir dire and the last round of questions. One by one the lawyers picked jurors to stand for interrogation. But is there any way you could come to a guilty verdict? Do you think you could follow the instructions of the court even if you don't think it should be illegal for a man to carry one joint of marijuana? Do you think you can believe witness testimony and come to a place where you are reasonably convinced that he is either guilty or not guilty?
After an hour of deliberation, the final 14 were chosen. All white. 6 women and 6 men. Most of whom had not said a word through the entire voir dire process.
"How is that a jury of his peers?" I asked as the rest of us were ushered outside.
No one answered. And everyone went home.
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