stay in school

It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that my number came up to sit on the jury for what was scheduled to be a seven-day trial for some kind of armed robbery (with a hammer!). Out of 55 in the pool, yours truly was drafted with around the tenth pick and instructed to sit in seat one of the jury box. Yes! So, I scamper on up there and get ready for a few questions from the judge, a slightly angry (only a touch), middle-aged white woman, to see if I'm fit to serve. The nine prior to me to get bounced from the hot seat were tossed for a number of reasons, including: student status (no-brainer), loss of income (tougher sell, judge excused some, but not all of these cases), mental illness (probably what I should have gone with), police-lovers (judge would not excuse, but defense always bounced) and poor grasp of the English language (my favorite, especially after having the one guy, who claimed that he didn't speak a lick of English, debating the finer points of the Mets' Santana signing with another dude out in the hallway only minutes before - high comedy).

After establishing that I'm a US citizen, speak the language and don't know the punk that jacked the Quick Check, she asks if there are any other items on the 27 point checklist that might pose a problem. I tell her that number 25, which asks if I would be able to follow the judge's directions without factoring in my own personal beliefs, has, "given me pause, as I'm concerned that it might, ummm, abrogate my right to act on my conscience." For that whole last part of my response, I was thinking, "did I just use the word 'abrogate?' I've never used it before in my life, I'm pretty sure. Was that even a proper usage?" So, while I'm thinking on that, she snaps her head to look at me and says, loudly, "What?!?", at which point I am quickly consumed with fear ("What the f did I just do?") and a little bit of panic. I do, though, manage to mumble something like, "you know, jury nullification," to which she responds, "Please explain."

Now, I know that she's just testing me, so even though I'm a little nervous, what with the three sheriff guys behind me with guns, plus the 75+ in the room, at least I know that the floor is mine, which is somewhat comforting. So, I kind of shrug my shoulders and answer: "I just want to, uhhh, make sure that I preserve my right to, uhhh, act on my conscience both as it relates to the facts of the case, as well as, you know, any applicable law, that's all. And by not raising that issue with you now, I feel like I might be conceding that right." "So," she says, "you want to be able to act on your conscience?" "Yes," I answer. "Are you comfortable, if the facts suggest to be the case, with finding the defendant guilty?" "Yes," I respond. "Could you similarly find the defendant not guilty?", she asks. "Sure." "Okay, good. Is there anything else?", she asks, which makes me kind of nervous that she's gonna seat my ass and leave me to hold out that the prosecutor tosses me (which is guaranteed, but I'm not sure he has any more boots left). So, I flip the questionnaire to the first page and say, "Only one other thing, your honor: I'm self-employed." And, I swear, maybe 2/5ths of a second after the words were out of my mouth, she spits out, "Excused!" and I'm out of there. Unlike the other poor SOBs that claimed job issues and had to do the hand-to-mouth thing and 'how am I gonna pay the rent', she bounced me so fast I didn't even have a chance to get my crocodile tears flowing: "You don't understand, your honor: I just scratch a filly out of two races. Her friend, she just hurta her leg, no more race. Plus, they eat so much." Gradually, my English would have gotten worse and worse to the point that my next bullet would have been claiming an inability to grasp the language...Anyway, it never came to that, so I grabbed my bag and hightailed it out of there, leaving the wheels of justice to roll on w/o me.