I've been out of action for a few days and I spent the last 2 days doing my civic duty on a jury panel. Jury duty is a flip side of the "right to vote", for which you then have the "duty to serve." As it involved 2 days off from work (for which I was still paid by my company) and 1 free lunch, it wasn't so bad for me. Of course, I realize that it can be more than a slight inconvenience for others. However, I'm not sure how many kossaks have served on juries, so I figured I would share with you a little of what I saw of the judicial process.
The case was fairly simple. A young black man was accused of possession and possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, and resisting arrest. He had been picked up during a narcotics surveillance in one of Philadelphia's crime prone neighborhoods.
The jury selection took longer than the trial and at the end of it we ended up with 2 white men, 3 black women, 6 white women, and me. Interestingly, while the original pool of 40 included several black men, they were all gone by the time the 12 and 1 alternate were chosen. That took all day Monday. If there is such a thing as "winning the jury selection", I think the DA won.
On Tuesday the trial took place. The DA called 4 cops to testify and they explained some of the workings of narcotics surveillance, although I have to say, they kept talking about how they were in plainclothes, but if I saw a bunch of burly white guys in a black neighborhood, I might have my suspicions about that. Anyway, a man (presumably the defendent) was seen selling drugs out of an abandoned car (flat tires, windows shot out, passenger seat gone) to 2 different people, one of whom was picked up an arrested (we did wonder why they weren't able to pick up the 2nd person). The guy then rode away on a bike. When he rode back about half an hour later, the police arrested him. As they had him on the ground and were cuffing him, neighborhood children threw sticks and trash cans at the cops while our defendent shouted for his mom.
So what was the defense? They called 1 witness, the defendent, who told us a rambling story involving his landlord, his mom, his friend, the "F" word, a trip to big KMart, and Toys R Us finally leading to his arrest.
We started deliberating after lunch. It took us about 15 minutes to turn in a guilty verdict on the drug charges and not guilty on resisting arrest (it wasn't his fault that kids were throwing trash cans at the cops).
So with this small brush with the criminal justice system I can say:
- If you have a large sense of justice, it's somewhat difficult to have to confine yourself to the facts of the case. We might have wished that the defendent had some other witnesses to back up his story, but he didn't. We might have wanted to know what he would end up sentenced with, but we didn't.
- Being a public defender is a thankless job. His PD did an OK job, but there really wasn't much for her to work with. Mr. JMS thinks maybe it was one of her first trials and they told her "you'll probably lose, but it's good practice"
- Being a judge is fun. You get to be the boss of everyone. Except that during the day of the trial, another judge 2 floors up was attacked by a man awaiting sentencing. The man was shot by a marshall. It got exciting, but we missed the whole thing. Our judge was a rambly sort who gave us a lecture (several times) on the constitution and how beautiful it was--and that even the president is not immune if he lies (wonder who the judge will be voting for come November...)
So...have you ever been on a jury? Are you in favor of having juries? Is trial by jury the worst system to have--except for all the other things we've tried?