A Trial by Jury Read Online Free

For the next month, each day would underline the lesson. One is vulnerable here, made small; an aura of finality pricks out the details of ordinary life; a large force waits in the wings.
    The room grew quiet for a moment. But only for a moment, for, as soon as the judge moved on to explain that the trial would take more than a week, and that it would involve sequestration, up went a distinct and concerned murmur. When the judge invited those who believed themselves incapable of fulfilling such an obligation to come forward and explain, 80 percent of the room rose. I whispered to the woman sitting next to me that I was a little surprised more people weren’t curious to see what would happen; she said she was only remaining seated while she thought up an excuse. My sense was that I was busy, but how could I be too busy for this? Unlike many of those trying to be excused, I faced no particular financial hardship if I ended up being asked to serve. One by one people approached the bench, mumbled, and were dismissed. This took the remainder of the day.
    I slipped out to the men’s room down the hall. On the filthy wall two choice bits of graffiti stood out: “Fuck the police” and “I sniff juror underpants.”
    The following morning, after my name found its way out of yet another octagonal roller, I was called from the pews and seated in the jury box. The process of selection now began in earnest: this was
voir dire,
the question-and-answer session that the attorneys use to select jurors; I was on the “panel.” We were a total of eighteen, but our number required repeated replenishing as panelists disqualified themselves and the judge asked them to step down. Some cases were stranger than others. A shuffling man in a flannel shirt carrying a plastic bag of books and dog-eared papers declared lucidly that he was a Quaker, and that his religion prevented him from being part of “any process that authorizes the government to use violence against any individual.” He was excused.
    Several of our number bowed out in response to the simple question, “Is there anyone here who believes that they are unable to be fair in judging this case?” The clean-cut young man next to me, with a spy thriller on his lap, raised his hand. “And why not?” Because he felt that recidivism rates were too high, and he “basically” didn’t want it on his conscience if the guy killed again. Anyway, he thought the best policy was to lock ’em all up for good.
    Killed again? We hadn’t even figured out if he’d killed the first time. Excused.
    One woman said she was terrified, afraid of being involved; she was hyperventilating. Excused.
    A hand went up. A soccer-mom type, well put together, energetic. On being asked to explain, she tripped over her tongue and could say only that she did not think she could be fair, “in the circumstances.”
    â€œWhat circumstances?” the judge wanted to know.
    â€œJust . . . well, being here,” she stuttered, gesturing at the room. She could not find the words.
    The judge dismissed her with undisguised irritation. But as she gathered her bag and coat, I found myself wondering if she hadn’t grasped something real and disturbing about the proceedings. After all, the judge had said we needed to be “impartial,” that we were not to let the fact that the defendant had been arrested have any weight as we evaluated his guilt or innocence. But what could this rhetoric of neutrality possibly mean, here, in the
“circumstances,”
literally, “that which stood around us”—the vaulting room, the somber judge, the armed guards? We sat in a theater trimmed with the trappings of the state’s power; this power was being dramatized for us with pomp. Yet the judge wanted us to deny that any of this—his high chair, the robes, the guns—would influence our perception. But how could it not?