Jury Duty? Almost!

On Oct. 14, 2008, the Word of the Day from the Oxford English Dictionary was jury.  The OED is a little more thorough than many dictionaries in that their lexicographers not only define words, but also chart the use of those  words over time, providing copious verbatim quotations to that effect.  In this case, the story of the word jury begins in 1187 with a reference in Latin.  One might have thought the word would be somewhat older, but we apparently did not derive the entirety of our civic system from the ancients.

The OED defines the word thus:

A company of persons (orig. men) sworn to render a verdict or true answer upon some question or questions officially submitted to them; in modern times, in a court of justice, usually upon evidence delivered to them touching the issue; but in the earliest times usually upon facts or matters within their own knowledge, for which reason they were summoned from the neighborhood to which the question submitted to them related….

The reason I mention it is that I recently was called for jury duty in the middle disrict of North Carolina.  The middle district comprises 24 counties:  Alamance, Cabarrus, Caswell, Chatham, Davidson, Davie, Durham, Forsyth, Guilford, Hoke, Lee, Montgomery, Moore, Orange, Person, Randolph, Richmond, Rockingham, Rowan, Scotland, Stanly, Stokes, Surry, Yadkin. The court holds proceedings in three cities, Durham, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem.  I live in Durham; Greensboro is an hour away; through some bureaucratic fiat, the wisdom of which surpasses all understanding, I was called to jury duty in Winston-Salem, 90 miles to the west.

Winston-Salem is hardly my neighborhood.  Neither are most of those other 24 counties.

It’s an interesting concept, though, a jury.  As implied in the above definition, the jury has its basis in the idea that a group of people can determine a verdict or statement of truth by listening to opposing renditions of conditions and events occurring at some remove in the past.  They do so surmising that neither of the renditions actually reflects the truth; they come to their conclusion on the matter in question by interpolation–and often intuition.  It is a system fraught with sources of potential error, yet we have clung to it over the centuries as our best solution to the problem of doing justice to the citizens of our country.

“Doing justice to them.”  What a turn of phrase that is.

If you’ve never been called to jury duty, you’ve missed participating in–or at least witnessing–an exercise in human nature, the good and the not so.  The news from Washington, D.C., about the problems jurors in the Ted Stevens trial have been having–and causing–demonstrates the kind of thing I’m talking about.  But how did these people come to find themselves confronting these issues–and each other–in the first place?

No less an authority than the august USCourts.Gov states that potential jurors “are summoned for service…from voters lists (and sometimes drivers lists).”  I actually have heard people cite this fact as their rationale for never registering to vote.  For this and other reasons, our elected officials have only had to win over a majority of the 30% of the American population that actually votes.  The job of the trial lawyer obviously is even more focussed.

I have voted since I turned 18–some mumble-mumble years ago; thus, I have been called for duty on various kinds of juries every couple of years throughout that time.  I’m going to keep voting, but the thought has crossed my mind, “What would happen if I just didn’t show up?”  Once again, USCourts.Gov holds forth:  “Any person who fails to return a completed qualification questionnaire may be summoned to appear before the clerk of the court to fill out the form.”

Gosh, I thought the penalty would be lots worse.  Staying after class with the school marm, no matter how sternly she regarded me, doesn’t sound so awful bad.

So in this way, through light, easily resisted coercion and the blandishments of a daily stipend, juries are supposed to be representative of the population at large.  As we have seen, though, being drawn from voters lists, juries already are fairly restrictively sourced.  The on-paper qualifications, however, seem refreshingly open:

USCourts.Gov explains, “To be legally qualified for jury service, an individual must:

  • be a United States citizen
  • be at least 18 years of age
  • reside primarily in the judicial district for one year
  • be adequately proficient in English
  • have no disqualifying mental or physical condition
  • not currently be subject to felony charges
  • never have been convicted of a felony (unless civil rights have been legally restored)

I have found that an unspoken requirement for service, in addition to an ignorance of the law as stated above, is a complete lack of knowledge on the particulars of the matter under consideration by the court.  More than once I have avoided actually being seated on a jury by professing knowledge and expertise on some point of contention in the trial.  Once, when the trial had to do with an accident in which one of the vehicles was equipped with air brakes, I asserted that my experience driving school buses had conferred expertise in this area.  My hoped-for rejection in this case took the form of a brief statement to this effect:  “Mr. Byers, you are dismissed.”  Sweeter words were never spoken, yet I felt obligated to convey just that soupcon of disappointment that let everyone know that I had been ready to serve and was just that little bit miffed that I had missed my chance to do so.

Back to my own recent experience with jury duty, it was rather anti-climatic.  I had been somewhat impressed that this was Federal court–more serious than my previous experience, or so I thought.  As things turned out I never sat for a day in the jury pool in North Carolina Middle District Court, Winston-Salem Divisional Office, Winston-Salem, NC.

My term of service was six weeks, and I dutifully called in to the special phone line every Sunday evening, though I dreaded the possibility of being told I had to start a two-hour journey into uncertainty the following morning at 6:00.  Each week I received the message that my services would not be required at the moment, but with the clear implication that I should not relax my vigilance; I would be required to come sooner or later.  Since this was the period of post-Ike gasoline shortage in North Carolina, the prospect of being stranded, either in Durham or in Winston-Salem, was quite real to me, the father of a pre-schooler.  Having started a new, very demanding job, too, I dreaded having to be away on such a flimsy-seeming pretext.  On this one occasion, my life reversed its recent trend, and I was spared the complications of jury duty in what could be taken for an almost foreign land.

What do I know about Winston-Salem?  What do I know about the law?  What do I know about the kinds of matters they address in Federal district courts?  By God, I know nothing; I am, thus, just the sort of person they want there; and to think, they somehow missed the chance to have me.

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