* * *
It all began when S----- was summoned to jury duty, six or seven months after we had moved to our new home in the Midwest. We'd gotten new driver's licenses by then, and registered to vote, and we'd registered the car in our new home state; but it still seemed surprising for one of us to be called so soon after arriving. The instructions mentioned that any trial S----- might serve on could be either civil or criminal, and might run from one day to ten or so.
We checked out the County Courthouse area on our maps, and a couple of days before S----- was to report for duty, we drove over to the neighboring community where the courthouse was located. The parking directions S----- had been sent were complicated, so we wanted to explore the environs carefully when timing wasn't critical as it would be on Jury Duty morning.
It was a good thing we did go to check out the route, because the whole courthouse complex turned out to be under construction. Some streets on our map were blocked off entirely. Traffic was redirected here and there. So we drove around the place a couple of times before parking in a ramp S----- could easily find on the critical morning, and we walked around the construction barriers enough to map out the most direct route from the designated parking ramp to the front door of the courthouse.
The night before her scheduled court day, as directed, S----- telephoned and the automated message told her she didn't have to report after all: no new cases had been scheduled! We didn't have time to feel we had wasted our time getting ready. It was just a relief for her to be excused.
Six months later, I was summoned myself. The materials sent to me seemed much the same as what S----- had received, although I didn't see the directive for me to telephone the night before my Jury Day. In fact, I was scheduled for a Monday, so maybe calling Sunday was more complicated...? Still, the map was the same, and well, we'd checked it all out already... I answered the questionnaire and sent it back.
Then, as it happened, a couple of days before my report date, we happened to be near the courthouse with enough time to swing by just to confirm that I was remembering the layout correctly. Yes, we drove up this way, turned toward the courthouse there, and turned left just where S----- could drop me off and from where I could fairly easily walk to the front steps. I would call her to pick me up right at that spot when I was free.
Great.
I called the Juror Information Office to see why I wasn't required to call the evening before my day. "No, your summons day is a Monday," I was told: "We always have trials requiring jurors on Mondays. Report at 8:30 a.m."
So, that was that.
The early morning traffic wasn't so bad. We'd given ourselves plenty of time. The trip went just like clockwork. S----- let me out at the determined site about 7:30 a.m. I started walking along the sidewalk next to the plywood wall surrounding the construction work. But after a few steps I began to realize that the opening in the wall didn't seem to be where it had been when S---- and I had visited before, but there was no signage... so.... I kept on trudging, looking this way and that.
A young man wearing a hard-hat emerged from behind the plywood and piped right up: "Oh sir, are you looking for the entrance to the Courthouse?"
I acknowledged that indeed was my purpose.
"Well, we decided to move the entrance. We haven't put up any signs."
I pondered the situation, without impolite comment.
Fortunately, the young man added: "You should go on the rest of this block and..." Then, after looking back over his shoulder at how long the block was, he said: "I can show you."
He led me to the next street. Have I mentioned I'd taken the precaution of bringing my walking stick - my cane - with me? It did seem to help stimulate an appropriate level of sympathy. Anyway, when we got to the corner of the construction wall, he said I should cross the street and walk to the right down the hill two blocks to the next streetlight and cross back to the right, turn right again into a narrow passageway between plywood walls, which would bring me back up to a side door to the courthouse.
I grittily tapped away as he had directed.
I hadn't thought about the security measures that would greet us inside the door. There were four conveyor belts, metal-detector archways, and guards. I had to take off my belt but was allowed to leave my shoes on, and of course had to empty my pockets. I forgot to mention my pacemaker to the guards, but that didn't seem to be a problem, as it turned out. I had to hold up my trousers with one hand and carry everything else, including my cane, which cut a wide swath through the little crowd of prospective jurors, to a quiet corner where I could reassemble everything.
I knew I had to go to the sixth floor, but there was no sign of an elevator. I followed a sharply dressed man with a fat briefcase walking briskly ahead as though he knew where he was going, and sure enough, after two turns we reached a bank of elevators. As we stood there waiting our turn, he glanced in my direction and asked if I was a juror. "You'll want the sixth floor," he said; "There are signs."
I checked in at 8:15. All was going according to plan...? Well, perhaps not exactly, but there I was.
It was a large auditorium. There must have been more than a hundred of us prospective jurors on hand. Demographics were highly diverse. I noted that in the earlier wave of arrivals, the average age was approximately 20 years older than in the later wave. In all groups, the women were dressed better than the men.
At 8:45 or so a Bailiff named Ray started reading names, preceded by "Juror Number --." At somewhere around Number 45, he called my name. After a few more were called, we all followed Ray into the hallway outside our auditorium, where he said he would lead us to the third floor to Courtroom 15 (I think it was), where he would show us where to go.
Most everyone followed Ray down the stairs, but a woman with an oxygen tank and I with my cane took the elevator to the third floor. Ray and the others were waiting for us. He went back over the names, taking care to seat us in particular spots. There were two staff people inside the courtroom noting names, numbers, and seat locations.
We checked out the County Courthouse area on our maps, and a couple of days before S----- was to report for duty, we drove over to the neighboring community where the courthouse was located. The parking directions S----- had been sent were complicated, so we wanted to explore the environs carefully when timing wasn't critical as it would be on Jury Duty morning.
It was a good thing we did go to check out the route, because the whole courthouse complex turned out to be under construction. Some streets on our map were blocked off entirely. Traffic was redirected here and there. So we drove around the place a couple of times before parking in a ramp S----- could easily find on the critical morning, and we walked around the construction barriers enough to map out the most direct route from the designated parking ramp to the front door of the courthouse.
The night before her scheduled court day, as directed, S----- telephoned and the automated message told her she didn't have to report after all: no new cases had been scheduled! We didn't have time to feel we had wasted our time getting ready. It was just a relief for her to be excused.
*
Six months later, I was summoned myself. The materials sent to me seemed much the same as what S----- had received, although I didn't see the directive for me to telephone the night before my Jury Day. In fact, I was scheduled for a Monday, so maybe calling Sunday was more complicated...? Still, the map was the same, and well, we'd checked it all out already... I answered the questionnaire and sent it back.
Then, as it happened, a couple of days before my report date, we happened to be near the courthouse with enough time to swing by just to confirm that I was remembering the layout correctly. Yes, we drove up this way, turned toward the courthouse there, and turned left just where S----- could drop me off and from where I could fairly easily walk to the front steps. I would call her to pick me up right at that spot when I was free.
Great.
*
I called the Juror Information Office to see why I wasn't required to call the evening before my day. "No, your summons day is a Monday," I was told: "We always have trials requiring jurors on Mondays. Report at 8:30 a.m."
So, that was that.
The early morning traffic wasn't so bad. We'd given ourselves plenty of time. The trip went just like clockwork. S----- let me out at the determined site about 7:30 a.m. I started walking along the sidewalk next to the plywood wall surrounding the construction work. But after a few steps I began to realize that the opening in the wall didn't seem to be where it had been when S---- and I had visited before, but there was no signage... so.... I kept on trudging, looking this way and that.
A young man wearing a hard-hat emerged from behind the plywood and piped right up: "Oh sir, are you looking for the entrance to the Courthouse?"
I acknowledged that indeed was my purpose.
"Well, we decided to move the entrance. We haven't put up any signs."
I pondered the situation, without impolite comment.
Fortunately, the young man added: "You should go on the rest of this block and..." Then, after looking back over his shoulder at how long the block was, he said: "I can show you."
He led me to the next street. Have I mentioned I'd taken the precaution of bringing my walking stick - my cane - with me? It did seem to help stimulate an appropriate level of sympathy. Anyway, when we got to the corner of the construction wall, he said I should cross the street and walk to the right down the hill two blocks to the next streetlight and cross back to the right, turn right again into a narrow passageway between plywood walls, which would bring me back up to a side door to the courthouse.
I grittily tapped away as he had directed.
*
I hadn't thought about the security measures that would greet us inside the door. There were four conveyor belts, metal-detector archways, and guards. I had to take off my belt but was allowed to leave my shoes on, and of course had to empty my pockets. I forgot to mention my pacemaker to the guards, but that didn't seem to be a problem, as it turned out. I had to hold up my trousers with one hand and carry everything else, including my cane, which cut a wide swath through the little crowd of prospective jurors, to a quiet corner where I could reassemble everything.
I knew I had to go to the sixth floor, but there was no sign of an elevator. I followed a sharply dressed man with a fat briefcase walking briskly ahead as though he knew where he was going, and sure enough, after two turns we reached a bank of elevators. As we stood there waiting our turn, he glanced in my direction and asked if I was a juror. "You'll want the sixth floor," he said; "There are signs."
I checked in at 8:15. All was going according to plan...? Well, perhaps not exactly, but there I was.
*
It was a large auditorium. There must have been more than a hundred of us prospective jurors on hand. Demographics were highly diverse. I noted that in the earlier wave of arrivals, the average age was approximately 20 years older than in the later wave. In all groups, the women were dressed better than the men.
At 8:45 or so a Bailiff named Ray started reading names, preceded by "Juror Number --." At somewhere around Number 45, he called my name. After a few more were called, we all followed Ray into the hallway outside our auditorium, where he said he would lead us to the third floor to Courtroom 15 (I think it was), where he would show us where to go.
Most everyone followed Ray down the stairs, but a woman with an oxygen tank and I with my cane took the elevator to the third floor. Ray and the others were waiting for us. He went back over the names, taking care to seat us in particular spots. There were two staff people inside the courtroom noting names, numbers, and seat locations.
*
The Assistant County Attorney who was prosecuting the case told us it would be a criminal trial on the charge of "Statutory Sodomy" in which the accused was said to have wooed into a private spot a 14-year-old girl and fingers penetrated the vagina. I think that was it in just about the exact words.
Someone named Jackie, who turned out to be a woman, was the accused, and the victim's name would not be told, as is normally true in the case of minors.
*
"So," the ACA - a youngish woman - asked: "Do you generally understand the charge? Is there anyone who feels you couldn't participate in a trial on this kind of thing?" Her tone was flat. She seemed to be used to be asking this question. Routine. And she went on, saying that the trial would get underway that Monday afternoon and was expected to last Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Would that be a problem for anyone?
Someone raised a hand and said, she had tickets for a vacation to Hawaii... The point was noted, it seemed, but there was no sense this would let her off the hook. Four or five people asked questions or made comments. One woman said something about "I myself - " when the prosecutor interrupted and said, "Do you want to some forward and discuss your situation with us privately?" That meant in quiet voices at the front of the room with the judge (a 50-ish man) and the two attorneys, one man and one woman, for the defendant and the prosecuting team... Private in public with about six people. I couldn't hear what they were saying myself, though.
From the word or two they said standing at their seats, one by one, before being invited to the confidential "sidebar," as they called it, I had the impression that seven or eight of the twenty or twenty-five women in the jury pool had been exposed to sexual abuse personally. Each had a few minutes up front and then returned to her seat.
The Assistant County Attorney resumed after a while, "The language describing this alleged sodomy will have to be pretty detailed and explicit; you can imagine why. Does anyone think just hearing this kind of thing will make it impossible for you to think clearly and reason calmly about the guilt or innocence of the accused according to the evidence presented?"
Only one woman, sitting next to me as it turned out, raised her hand on that one. When she spoke, I had the impression she herself had been wondering about that very question . She said her religion was her whole life and that this whole kind of thing was unthinkable to her. The ACA and this woman discussed the situation for several minutes, across the crowded room of all of us. "Well, do you think you might not be able to hear the accusations, then?"
The woman said Hearing and understanding would not be the problem; considering the motives and the people's characters were the problem. The woman spoke very calmly during all this give-and-take, and finally was just asked to be seated again.
After about an hour of this kind of general conversation with the whole jury pool, the ACA took up some papers and looked over the 12 or 15 people seated actually in the jury box already. She entered into a little conversation with each of them, starting with the answers we had all provided to the courts by mail a week earlier. "As a plasterer, Jim, do you work for a company or for yourself?" "Marie Sue, have you ever served on a jury before? Criminal? Were you foreman?" "Do you know any police officers, Susan? Would that be in St. Louis County, or City?" "Do you work long hours in the operating room sometimes?" "You're currently in college? What are you studying?" That sort of thing.
Then the ACA turned to the larger group of us and called on individuals with questions of a similar nature. She asked far fewer follow-up questions with us and almost always got to a summarizing question right away: "Would that prevent you from listening impartially to the evidence on both sides of this case?"
There was one man about midway back in the crowd who acknowledged he had already served on six juries, all criminal. The conversation lasted a little longer with him, with his answers being mostly of the "Yep" or "Nope" variety. Nope, he ad never been foreman. Yep, the jury had always reached a verdict.
I was not asked any questions. We had an hour off for lunch. Oops, oh: And because of the construction, the cafeteria in the basement isn't open today. Buh-Bye.
From the word or two they said standing at their seats, one by one, before being invited to the confidential "sidebar," as they called it, I had the impression that seven or eight of the twenty or twenty-five women in the jury pool had been exposed to sexual abuse personally. Each had a few minutes up front and then returned to her seat.
The Assistant County Attorney resumed after a while, "The language describing this alleged sodomy will have to be pretty detailed and explicit; you can imagine why. Does anyone think just hearing this kind of thing will make it impossible for you to think clearly and reason calmly about the guilt or innocence of the accused according to the evidence presented?"
Only one woman, sitting next to me as it turned out, raised her hand on that one. When she spoke, I had the impression she herself had been wondering about that very question . She said her religion was her whole life and that this whole kind of thing was unthinkable to her. The ACA and this woman discussed the situation for several minutes, across the crowded room of all of us. "Well, do you think you might not be able to hear the accusations, then?"
The woman said Hearing and understanding would not be the problem; considering the motives and the people's characters were the problem. The woman spoke very calmly during all this give-and-take, and finally was just asked to be seated again.
After about an hour of this kind of general conversation with the whole jury pool, the ACA took up some papers and looked over the 12 or 15 people seated actually in the jury box already. She entered into a little conversation with each of them, starting with the answers we had all provided to the courts by mail a week earlier. "As a plasterer, Jim, do you work for a company or for yourself?" "Marie Sue, have you ever served on a jury before? Criminal? Were you foreman?" "Do you know any police officers, Susan? Would that be in St. Louis County, or City?" "Do you work long hours in the operating room sometimes?" "You're currently in college? What are you studying?" That sort of thing.
Then the ACA turned to the larger group of us and called on individuals with questions of a similar nature. She asked far fewer follow-up questions with us and almost always got to a summarizing question right away: "Would that prevent you from listening impartially to the evidence on both sides of this case?"
There was one man about midway back in the crowd who acknowledged he had already served on six juries, all criminal. The conversation lasted a little longer with him, with his answers being mostly of the "Yep" or "Nope" variety. Nope, he ad never been foreman. Yep, the jury had always reached a verdict.
I was not asked any questions. We had an hour off for lunch. Oops, oh: And because of the construction, the cafeteria in the basement isn't open today. Buh-Bye.
*
I didn't even try to find a restaurant nearby. I spent a little time trying to figure out a place to tell S----- to pick me up, when it was time for me to call her. I figured that the corner across the street downhill would be easy for her to get to, and easy for me to describe on the phone. There actually was a bench there in a little - or rather, tiny - park area outside a bank. It promised to be about 95 degrees.
*
After lunch, it was the turn of the defense attorney to have discussions with all the prospective jurors. He said over and over again that he had very little to say because Ms. ---- had done such a thorough job. Altogether, on the other hand, he took about two hours... almost exactly the same amount of time as the ACA had taken.
Like Ms.----, the defense attorney spent more time with several of the 12-15 people near the front, asking particular follow-up questions. Then he turned to the rest of us, with the apparent goal of making sure that no individual was left without having been asked at least one or two questions. Maybe he thought our feelings would have been hurt. When he addressed someone, like me, who had not as yet spoken, he always asked something related to one's work. "When you say you are retired, what work did you used to do?" for example. That was the question to me, as it was to five or six others. Or "So you are an accountant? Do you do people's tax work?" "How long have you worked for Walgreen's?" He didn't always seem to listen to our replies.
There was something annoying about this man, maybe the impression he gave me that he hadn't looked at our papers until that very morning or the sense he conveyed that this proceeding was about him and about he would have to say and do, rather than about Jackie and her alleged victim.
Anyway, about 3 p.m. we were invited to go to the wide hallway outside and wait until we were called back in and the jury would be seated.
*
None of the other prospective jurors had spoken to me up to this point, but two or three did make a comment during this long break, One of them asked me if my cane was a blackthorn from Ireland, which it is. No one openly expressed any anxieties or opinions, but I was convinced we were all unified in exactly the same position: Choose somebody else!
We didn't even know enough to suspect that the most likely choices were those seated near the front who had been questioned the most. But that was my own supposition.
So, when Ray came back a little before 4, it was no surprise when most of those he called back in - with different seat numbers this time - were from the original group. But only a little over half. About 5 of the 15 re-seated came from just anywhere around the room. The woman next to me was not one of them. Neither was I (or the man who recognized my cane). But the fellow who had already served on seven juries was selected to serve again. Yep, he was.
*
Another Bailiff escorted the remaining 25 or 30 of us back to the auditorium on the 5th floor, where we learned they would be putting together one more jury.
We'd barely had time to sit down again when the second Bailiff came back and started reading names: "Juror Number 1, T-- Br----" and so on. Many of us who had been together all day were called back out into the hall. ...But not me. Five minutes after this second crowd was escorted away, those 20 or so of us remaining were released. We'd be paid for one day's jury service.
*
S---- had been studying Google map while I had been in court, and we had no trouble finding each other for the trip home. After two or three weeks, I got my check: $11.92. I believe it's tax-free.
* * *
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