Twelve Angry Men

Do you know what sounds exactly to me like the words, “tax season?” Jury duty.

When I hear the words “jury duty,” I get the same sense of dread and foreboding that I get with the coming of every end of February, first of March, when H&R Blocks begin springing up all over like acne on a teenager’s face.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about civic-mindedness and, as a paralegal, I have an intrinsic belief in our judicial system and the right to trial by a jury of one’s peers.

But I have been “selected” so many times (twice in one 12-month period once) that I am now the unofficial guide of both the courthouse facility, in particular, and the legal system, in general.

Don’t ask me how it seems that others know that it’s not my first rodeo. I don’t wear a sign that reads, “Follow me to the county courthouse,” or “Courthouse Tour Guide.” But somehow, someway, even while I’m waiting in the same line with people waiting to be TSA’d for entry, I get asked questions…lots of questions.

“What time do they start letting us in?” they ask me, ignoring the fact that I’m one of the “us.”

“Seven thirty,” I reply.

Once the doors open, I place my keys and electronics along with my mostly empty purse into a bucket for x-ray and walk over the threshold and through the plastic, tan doorway that inevitably begins the blip and bleep as if I am toting a two-hundred-pound torpedo inside.

I stand dutifully, like a giant X with my feet spread and arms in the air, while a courthouse bailiff does some strange voiceless incantation, rolling a strange, wand-like apparatus around the perimeter of my body.

When he determines that neither my titanium chin (dental surgery) nor my artificial knee (tractor accident) will preclude me from serving, I obediently follow the herd to a line waiting to enter the juror room.

Once inside the glassed-in enclosure, I head down the hallway that I know so well, past the restrooms, to the double doors of the auditorium. I take a seat in front of the podium and giant-screen monitors, all of which will soon be used in a short-lived attempt to debrief people who have already been practicing every method imaginable to get out of doing what we are being asked to do.

This time George sits next to me.

“What do I need to do?” he asks me, again, a fellow juror.

“George,” I say, reading his name from his postcard summons, “you need to complete this portion,” and I begin tearing along the perforation that he has not yet discovered, since he only opened the part that told him the date to appear and how to get to the courthouse. “If you wish to be paid the whopping sum of fifteen dollars for a day’s service, then you need to check that box, but if your employer is paying you to be here, then you will not be paid by both.”

“I’m self-employed,” George tells me.

“Then check the box that reads, ‘self-employed,’ I tell him, handing him a pen from my purse.

In minutes a courthouse employee approaches the podium, set high between the two monitors, and begins what I am sure is a recitation she can do in her sleep and probably does. She is quite pleasant, and her sing-song voice, I’m certain, is a way to make people less pensive about the strangeness of the situation. It does not lull me into a false sense of anything, as I am simply thinking about how fast I can get to coffee.

She finishes her spiel, and as quickly as I can without seeming too anxious, I spring to second in one of three lines that form to get covers for our “Juror” badges.

After attaching my badge, I quickly exit to the cafeteria to get my second cup of coffee, the first of which I drank driving the forty minutes north.

 “Where can I get coffee?” another juror asks me as I’m exiting to the cafeteria, then she has at least a modicum of decency to laugh when she reads my badge and says, “Oh! You’re a juror just like me!” Well, honey, not exactly. Not unless you’ve served so much that the courthouse is becoming your second home.

I sit at a table tepidly enjoying my diluted, Styrofoam (unbelievable) cup of coffee and the breakfast that I’ve packed (along with lunch and snacks for the afternoon). I am approached by a woman who introduces herself, then proceeds to tell me that she is the owner and sole employee of a new floral business and how this is simply not the best time for her to experience this foray into law. Like self-employed George before her, she runs her excuses by me as if to test the validity of whether any – or all – of her arguments will stand the litmus test of why she should not have to serve.

I explain that, if she is selected from the assembled group, attorneys for both sides (prosecution and defense) will ask her questions, a process called “voir dire,” and is Latin for “to speak the truth.” At that time, she can explain why she believes what she believes or doesn’t.

She seems disheartened that I’m somehow, miraculously, not able to relieve her of this responsibility over my coffee and muesli yogurt with chia and flax.

Shortly thereafter I take my leave and re-enter the juror area, where I am asked by another juror, “Can I take my coffee inside?” (I’m carrying mine inside when I am asked).

At eight-thirty a.m. promptly, the lights are dimmed, and a video procession of everyone from judges to state representatives to just shy of the courthouse janitor appears on the monitors explaining how important we are and what we are doing is.

I agree, but I have decided that, after being asked to serve on jury duty so many times, the only people who seem to make it to serve on juries appear to be the people who don’t come up with excuses to get out of serving fast enough.

And frankly, the people I’d like best to sit for any trial of which I am a defendant, are in their 70s, and there is a special exception that excuses people permanently once they turn 70. Are you kidding me? If someone is retired, that’s who needs to be asked. They have time. They have life experience. They have opinions that they are not afraid to express. I know for a fact that I only need one 70-year-old, in a jury of 12, to save me. Convince my 70-year-old friends of anything, and they won’t budge.

After the debriefing and shallow brainwashing attempt, I exit to a little-known room away from the crowd. I am the second of two people in the room. Keith, in a blue dress shirt and dress slacks, looks like the proverbial attorney. His head is bent toward his laptop screen, and like me, he appears to “know the ropes,” and look as if he somehow belongs more than the others.

He laughs when I enter, telling me, “Everyone else has looked in and left.”

I don’t tell him that he, indeed, is the intruder of my territory.

I put in ear buds, turn on music, and produce the day’s worth of reading material I’ve brought with me.

Three announcements and an hour later, my name is called, and Keith looks at me, grimaces, and shakes his head as if to say, “Tough luck, kiddo.” With that, I realize that he, too, is a courthouse regular.

I gather my things thinking, “With all of these hard-luck excuses of self-employment, there’s no way I’m getting out of serving,” and I follow, once again, the herd of people to the foyer of the jury enclosure.

I’m certain that we are heading upstairs for voir dire, when I realize that the courthouse employee is stating that, so long as we are willing to forego our fifteen-dollar-day pay, we can leave.

She asks if anyone wishes to remain to get paid. Not a single hand raises. Everyone laughs nervously, sure, I’m certain, that a cough will cost us our release.

I sign away my right to payment and push open the glass door exit of the jury room.

I walk toward the courthouse exit, a sense of relief washing over me as palpably as jumping into a body of water. I can see and smell freedom past those courthouse doors.

And as I leave the courthouse, I realize the juxtaposition of my own sense of liberty and that of the very people for whom I am being asked to serve as a juror.

Next year, I think, next year I’ll come willingly.