injury duty

last time i was called for jury duty, jhumpa lahiri had just published one of her stories in the new yorker. i know because i asked her during one of the jury selection breaks if she had published anything. she said yes. i didn’t know who she was when i asked that question. i found out later that evening on the uptown 6 flipping through my new issue of the new yorker.

so i was extra vigilant as soon as i got through security at 100 centre, determined not to get caught flat-footed by another literary celebrity sighting. however, after about 5 minutes in the 15th floor jury pool room with 179 other people and a smart-ass court clerk who’s clearly been doing the job too long, i was completely engrossed in the parade of people, and the notion that i will know more about some of them before the day is over than some co-works and friends i had known for years.

because trial lawyers have the option to pick jurors they feel would be most sympathetic to their case, often these “challenges” rested on perceived personality as much as actual beliefs and experience. it’s not uncommon for the a.d.a. or the defense attorney to probe for reaction to things most of us would probably not easily share with people we know, much less strangers we met just that morning.

for instance, i learned:

• a heavily made-up middle aged woman was the victim of physical, sexual and emotional abuse by her ex-husband.
• a guy who “hates christmas” was robbed 5 times while living in l.a., all either right before or after christmas.
• a woman’s brother was tried and acquitted for attempted murder. she said the police botched it.
• a l.e.s. thug busted 5 times in the past 2 years for “smoking weed,” but insisted he was an “innocent bystander” at least once, simply at the “wrong place at the wrong time.”
• a woman who came to new york because she had a “bad boyfriend” who pulled a gun on her.

i also noticed that there appeared to be an over-representation of wives of investment bankers. i counted as least 6 out of my pool of 90. i didn't know civic duty was so popular among the trophy set.

in general, i liked what i saw and heard. personal history notwithstanding, all of them claimed they could be fair and impartial. while i’m not sure all of them would’ve served gladly, at least there was a sense they were willing to do their part.

there was only one person who plucked my nerve: a young accountant with no affect and a painful-looking ponytail. she told the judge she couldn’t return a guilty verdict if there was no fingerprints, dna, or other csi-type of evidence linking defendant to the crime.

the judge tried to walk her through an example of “beyond reasonable doubt”: “say you walk out of this courthouse and while the sky is sunny, the streets are completely wet and water is still dripping off the building. what happened?”

a reasonable answer would have been, “it rained.”

she said, “i don’t know, a street washer came by?....”

“what about the dripping water?,” added the judge, sounding annoyed.

“probably a window washer”

Posted by cellpharmer at July 20, 2008 08:42 PM