At the end of a grueling three days of civic duty, juror
number ten retires to her lair with a frosty cocktail, content in the knowledge
that justice has been served.
Oh, you didn’t know I was juror number ten?
That’s because I took a Big Solemn Oath not to blab about
the trial while it was going on – not even to the three of you who read my
blog. The judge didn’t say
anything about blogging after the fact, though, and so I submit the tale of my
heroic, harrowing, and often quite boring experience as Juror Number Ten.
It all began with a questionnaire delivered to my home via the
US Postal Service, which ominously requested that I go online and fill out a form. Disregarding
my husband’s advice to throw out said questionnaire, I complied and was
summoned to jury duty several months later.
It was difficult to get up and make it to the court at the
ungodly hour required (9 AM) since I generally try to avoid going outside
during daylight. But justice
is a stern master. I fortified myself with a mocha and put on somber colors,
because I hoped that would make me seem like a harsh and angry person unfit for
jury service.
In the courthouse, I sat in a vast, clean antechamber with
hundreds of other people and waited to have my number called. As a Jew, I think it is difficult to be
in these kinds of situations without thinking: We are waiting to be taken to
our death, but maybe that’s just my natural sense of adventure.
A portly man welcomed us from a podium at the front, and
played us a video about the history of jurisprudence narrated by Ed Bradley and
Diane Sawyer.
We did some fun tearing apart of perforated forms and then
after a while some of us got called up to a courtroom on the fifteenth floor. I
could not suppress a slight frisson as I took my seat in the wooden jury box
for the voir dire, which is the
questioning to see if you would be a good juror.
Even though I didn’t want to have to sit on a jury, I
started getting confused and hoping they would pick me after all. The judge asked us a few standard
questions such as whether we had any family members in law enforcement and if
we’d been on a jury before. When
she asked if any of us had been the victim of a violent crime, I raised my hand
and said I’d been mugged.
I was sort of hoping she would ask me to recount the
exciting story of my mugging – which was technically a draw, since he got my
purse but I got his mountain bike – but all she asked was whether a weapon was
involved, and I said no, and I ended up
getting my feelings a tiny bit hurt, because I think that makes my mugging
sound less exciting than other, more weapon-intensive assaults, when in fact it was a
really rousing mugging with a nice ebb and flow.
The judge was fabulous throughout. She was a youngish blond woman who radiated the subdued
amusement of a karate master forced to watch the sparring of novices. She was highly intelligent, as were the
lawyers and the bailiff. That was
a nice feeling, knowing that these matters are – at least some of the time – in
the hands of people of high intelligence.
After the judge was done, the lawyers each got to question us.
Having just written two sleazy romance novels starring a hot
Korean coed, I found it hard not to have inappropriate thoughts about the prosecutor. She
had bedroom eyes and looked statuesque and pouty in her tailored skirt suits. Her mellifluous voice oozed concern for the safety of Brooklyn’s
streets. Yum, thought Juror Number Ten. Even though I have no need for such things, I considered
buying a skirt suit.
The defense attorney, at first flush, seemed sort of oily
and disingenuous. Yet, as the
trial progressed, I grew to like him more and more. He was slim and silver-haired and wore a nice suit, but
there was something a little askew about him, an earring and multiple bracelets
including one of those lamentable cancer bracelets and several leather and bead
thingies that looked like something you get on vacation in Mexico. He was a lefty.
Interestingly, he used the voir dire to establish rapport with the jury, whereas the
prosecutor had merely used it to gain information. He stood closer to us, memorized our names instantly, and asked us trivial
questions that we couldn’t help but agree to. I have learned that this is a trait of successful persuasion: Get your target to agree to something first. It doesn’t matter what. Do it enough, and they will get used to
saying yes to you. Already from this interaction I started to get the sense
that the defense was going to win.
The trial was to determine if the defendant, a young black
man, had fired a gun into the air outside a club in Bed-Stuy a few years
ago. The defendant himself never took the stand or spoke. He just sat there looking nervous and unhappy and very, very young.
There was no physical
evidence to directly link him to the gun, however, and the two police eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen him shoot into the air and then stash the gun under a car tire both broke down under the defense’s
cross examination to reveal multiple inconsistencies in their stories. This, combined with memo books that
were clearly cooked and a phone log that didn’t corroborate their story, made
it an open and shut case.
As a sort of color commentator, a detective from ballistics
came in to talk to us about guns.
She was a dark-skinned woman with a beautiful French name that made me
want a glass of wine, and she was badass in a subdued way as she opened up the
chamber of the revolver and showed us how it worked. Everyone showed the gun a lot of respect and at no time did anyone point it at me, not even in play.
The two ordinary cops and the ballistics detective were all significantly overweight, unlike the
lawyers, judge, defendant, and most of the jury, who were all in good
fighting condition.
The defense attorney, whom I now thoroughly admired, sidled up close enough to us that we could speculate about which Caribbean island he had gotten each of his shell bracelets on, and gave us
his closing statement, returning to the crude yet effective guiding metaphor
about car sales he had introduced at the voir dire and appealing to our sympathy by saying “This is the
worst nightmare of any young African-American man.”
The prosecutor did not even attempt to make any symbolic or
emotional appeals during her summation.
She must have known she couldn’t win, which was why there was sometimes
the tiniest touch of resignation in her beautiful eyes. This only made her more piquant. And although I slightly resented her
redundant, twelve-page closing statement – which read like a college essay with
a length requirement – I tried to focus on what was essential: the probable color and cut of her underwear.
When the twelve of us retired to deliberate, we went around the table and all said “not guilty” right
away. However, we decided to wait to register our verdict until we had eaten our
free lunch. It was Italian, and we once again reached an immediate consensus: it was crap.
We went back in and it's really cool, by the way, how whenever you go in the room they announce "jury entering." That was good for my self-esteem and I wish that in my normal life whenever I entered a room someone would announce "Sarah entering." Maybe they could also play the trumpet.
Our fore-woman rose and said “not
guilty,” and it was so nice to see the look of relief on the young defendant’s
face. The guy who makes you swear
your oaths – I forget what he’s called – had this
incredibly resonant voice, like an old-time radio announcer, and he asked each of us in
turn if we agreed with the verdict, and we each said yes, and it had some of
the sweetness and ritual of saying yes in the marriage ceremony. And then everyone in the courtroom
seemed like one happy family, except perhaps for the prosecutor – who I thought
about trying to cheer up with a back rub but didn’t – and also except for the
stenographer, a balding, pale, stooped man straight out of Bartelby the Scrivener whose spectacular toxicity was a nice source of comic relief throughout the trial.
I said goodbye to my fellow jurors – a social worker, a nurse, a substitute teacher, a proofreader,
a ballet dancer, a wine shop owner – a rainbow of fruit flavors from all over Brooklyn. As I headed
out into the afternoon, I felt a brief flicker of pride to be an
American. Fortunately this passed
quickly, replaced by a more profound and enduring sensation: thirst.
THE ACQUITAL
This delicious summer cocktail has a
beautiful rosy pink color to celebrate innocence and new beginnings.
The soju, a smooth Korean vodka distilled from rice, barley
or other grains, commemorates the prosecution. The pluot is an odd fruit, a plum-apricot hybrid, yet its
taste wins in the end; it represents the defense. The large brown sugar cube is for the adorable bailiff, and
the champagne is for the judge: a touch of class. The lime and sloe gin are there to help accentuate the pluot
flavor; the latter is a liqueur flavored with blackthorn berries, and the only
good brand is Plymouth’s.
1 ounce soju
1/2 ounce sloe gin
2/3 ounces fresh lime juice
1/2 a pluot, cut in wedges
1 extra-large brown sugar cube (a la Perruche or Roland brand or
sub 1/2 ounce simple syrup)
generous splash chilled NV champagne
Muddle the pluot very well with the sugar cube in the bottom
of a shaker. Fill shaker with ice
and add all other ingredients except champagne. Shake vigorously until outside of shaker is frosted and
beaded with sweat. Strain into a
chilled cocktail glass or coupe (if you want a drink free from fruit filaments,
fine strain). Top with a generous
splash (approx. two ounces) of real, ice-cold champagne. Drink several and then plot your next crime.
