And Justice For All

I don’t know what it is about jury duty, but sometimes I think my name is at the top of the list. It’s been a while now, but I have been called to jury duty at least six times. I have friends and relatives, lifelong local citizens, who have never been called. But I figure, like voting, it’s my civic duty to help out. I have only been selected to be on a jury three times. The first time, I was all of 22 years old and it was a six-man jury charged with determining if damages were due a young lady who had a bruise on her leg from a minor automobile accident of which she was not at fault. She was the prototype blonde bombshell bimbo, married to a minor league baseball player, and totally looked and acted the part. Marilyn Monroe herself couldn’t have done it better. The highlight of the trial was when the judge asked her to show the jury her bruise, which turned out to be on her upper thigh. When she stretched out her curvaceous leg and hitched up her dress, every man in the courtroom’s tongue fell out. Hell yes we awarded her damages. The poor little thing. The second time was un-notable, but the third jury hit a home run. This was a felony trial that could send a man to prison for a long time. It was a twelve-man jury. The charges: breaking and entering, forcible rape, and a few more I’ve forgotten. It was a mixed-bag jury, about 1/3 black women, the rest divided between a few white women and a few white and black men. The defendant and victim were both black. The young man was the ex-husband of the victim and the father of her child. The man testified that he was out of work, but had found a job in New Jersey where he could live with his sister and that he went over to his ex’s house the evening of the crime simply to say goodbye to his son before he left the next day. The woman testified that he broke into her apartment through the back window and accosted her by tying her hands to the bed and raping her from behind. (Her demonstration of the position was notable.) He claimed that he did not break into the home, even though the bedroom window was broken out and duct tape, with his fingerprint on it, was stuck to the broken glass laying on the ground (indicating pre-meditation). She claimed that he tied her to the bed, stripped her and raped her, even though she wasn’t actually tied, but hand-cuffed, and wearing a black lace teddy with the crotch cut out when the police arrived. The police also found a duplicate pair of cuffs hanging from the mirror in her car and other bondage accessories in the apartment. Neighbors reported that she was known to frequently entertain guests. To the young man’s credit, he never missed a child support payment and always got his son when it was his turn to have him. A complication in the relationship were actions initiated by him to gain custody of the boy claiming the mother an unfit parent. He wanted to take the boy to New Jersey with him and she refused. Apart from all the other stuff, there was no doubt that the guy broke into the apartment, the police had him dead to rights. He probably wanted to forcibly take his child, but got entangled with his ex and diverted by Mr. Happy. For me, it was a real conundrum. Guilty beyond doubt on at least one charge, a felony breaking and entering, but plenty of doubt on all the others. Certainly enough doubt not to send this otherwise good father to prison for 20 years under very questionable circumstances. I was startled out of my conundrum by the slap of the gavel as the judge charged the jury, appointed me foreman, and dismissed us to deliberate. We all sat around the table and I took my place at the head wondering what I was going to say, when one of the black ladies started in. In rapid succession she was joined by all the others and the white women, all of them hot under the collar, all of them talking at once, all of them saying the same thing… “dat little tramp should be the one going to jail.” “Try to send dat boy up for 20 years, and he be the father of her baby!” “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it!” We men just looked at each other and smiled. The women kept at it. I called the bailiff and told him we were ready. The women kept at it. The men got up and went into the courtroom. The women were still at it. As the women filed into the courtroom they were silenced by the slap of the gavel as the judge called the court to order. The judge, reminiscent of Fred Gwynne in My Cousin Vinny, looked at his watch, and quizzically looked at me. “Twenty minutes?” He remarked. I squirmed under his gaze. After a pause, he continued, “Mr. Foreman, do you have a verdict?” “Yes, your honor,” I replied. “We find the defendant innocent of all charges.”