How Do You Find the Defendant?

Jury Duty. My initial reaction was "Great. Shit. This is the last fucking thing I need." I was supposed to show up Monday morning at 8:15am, which was fine as I had the day off, but I had plans on being in Minneapolis for the Vikings/Lions game that Sunday. And drinking beer. A lot of beer. As a Lions fan it kind of comes with the territory; we drink to forget.

So things go as planned, and I start thinking to myself "Why not skip jury duty? I could say I had car trouble or something. Yeah!" After six beers this seemed like a good plan. After ten, an even better one. Unfortunately for me, however, I have this messed up gene that makes shirking responsibility nigh impossible. So after around four hours of sobering up, eating fried chicken and taking a nap, I drove back to Madison (about three and a half hours..not too bad). The ride back was uneventful and I was mostly sober.

So Monday morning rolls around, I'm feeling pretty good (read: not hungover) and I make my way downtown to the court building. I'm in a room with about 300 people and immediately begin the game "Do I want to be on the same jury as you?". You: no. You: eh. You: Well hello! Yes indeed! And so on. Yes, I've turned a social responsibility into a meat market. It passes the time, at any rate. Don't judge me (hah! a jury joke!).

We get to watch a video about jury-ing, how important it is, how we play a part in the justice system, blah blah blah. Then the clerk of the courts gets up and gives a speech regurgitating the same message from the video, except this time it's entertaining because it's given in an effeminate Mexican accent. Thank you, Carlos. We're then told by a woman roughly 111 times more masculine than Carlos that it's now our duty to sit in the room until our juror number is called. Could be in ten minutes, could be six hours. Please have patience. I begin playing the 'serve on the jury' game again but modify it to 'would I be the foreman of this jury if you were on it?'. See, I've determined that if I do indeed get on a jury that I will be foreman (side note: I told this part of the story to my friend Elizabeth who replied: "I thought jews didn't have foreman?" Maybe the line of the year for me.)

About twenty minutes in to my new game, my number is called: 125. About twenty of us are ushered in to a judge's court room to begin the selection process. We again get the speech about how important we are and how the justice system can't work without us, and all I can think is "will he bang the gavel?" and "how exactly do you get a job as court stenographer? Is that something you try to do or is it some sort of punishment?"

It turns out we'll be jury-ing (I know, it's not a word, but I like it) a drunk driving case from January of 2007. The defendant maintains his innocence and has taken this all the way to a jury trial.

Am I disappointed? Hell yes. But intrigued just the same. But the question becomes "Will I even be chosen to be on the jury?". In this trial there will be 7 jurors (six to decide the verdict and one alternate) and there are twenty of us in the room. They pull 12 names at random to be questioned by both attorneys and the judge. My name being one of them, we make our way to the jury stand...or whatever it's called.

We're asked a series of questions like "Have you ever had a drunk driving experience?" "Have you ever had a beer and then drove?" and then this one: "Do you know anyone that's been involved in a drunk driving accident?" To this one (and others) I answer "Yes." Here's the rest of the interaction with the prosecuting attorney:

"You anwered yes Mr. PotPie, was this person injured?"

"About as injured as you can get; he was hit and killed at a stop light."

"Was this person close to you?"

"Yeah, one of my best friends at the time."

"Thank you."

At this point I'm certain that I'll be dismissed by the defense attorney. But life is strange, and I end up being chosen to serve on the jury, the trial starting Tuesday.


(To be continued)


M. PotPie