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closeSoup du jour: Founding Fathers were onto something
George Le Masurier
The Founding Fathers of America considered the concept of a citizen jury as a cornerstone of the Bill of Rights. They saw juries as the crown jewel of a free society’s legal system.
How could the founders possibly have foreseen that some 200 years later, Americans summoned to jury service would consider it their public duty to drop whatever they are doing and drive over to the courthouse to get themselves excused?
Many people apparently believe that jury service is something you can politely decline, like a second helping of Brussels sprouts at Thanksgiving.
That would explain why, on my first day of jury duty recently, approximately 250 of the 260 people in the jury pool room raised their hand when asked if they had served before. A Tacoma city employee sitting next to me said he’d heard most Pierce County juries are made up of “housewives and retirees” because everyone else finds a way to get out of it. That’s inaccurate, of course, but there is a fragment of truth in the perception. Some of those summoned simply don’t bother to show up.
My first reaction to the jury summons was to respond with one of the many reasons why I couldn’t fit it into my busy life. But I work for a company that regards jury service as a civic duty, and I was encouraged to serve. I’m glad I did.
Still, I wasn’t optimistic heading into the jury selection process, known as the “voir dire,” which someone once said is French for “find the 12 dumbest people in the room.”
I thought it odd that the prosecution asked for volunteers to answer his questions, which some were more than happy to do. The eager beaver in the next row shot his arm into the air at every question, jabbing it upwards and frantically waving his fingers like the smart-alec bookworm in sixth grade who knew all the answers.
“They’ll never pick him,” I thought to myself, but, by golly, they did, and they took me, too, which goes to show that I know absolutely nothing about picking a jury.
The jovial camaraderie of the jury pool room – which consists primarily of whining about how bored we all are – disappeared once we took places in the jury box. It was as if we all became simultaneously aware of the solemn obligation of sitting in judgment of another human being, and that by taking the jurors’ oath we officially transformed into an important piece of the judicial system.
Something unusual takes place in the jury room. After the first few days of a long trial – ours lasted a day over two weeks – you put roots around the common bond of having been selected for this particular trial. It’s a foxhole mentality, or a band of brothers psychology that takes hold quickly.
There’s also a certain organized buzz that reverberates through the room as you begin to deliberate. It’s a complicated process to reach a unanimous verdict in a criminal felony trial, and yet it happens more often than not.
My greatest fear before our jury started deliberating was that after the evidence given by a dozen or so witnesses I would come to a conclusion that no one else would share. I was certain everyone else would see it differently. I wondered if I would have the courage to hold my position. I was surprised to find myself in the initial majority view.
No one watched the clock. No one mentioned race. No one questioned the wisdom of the law the judge instructed us to consider. Everyone observed an unspoken code of civility and high-mindedness to reach the right verdicts.
And so, it occurs to me now that our Constutional framers saw citizen juries in the context of democracy, as a means of self-government not dissimilar to voting. Where else can 12 randomly chosen people come together in a room to deliberate the law and policy and fairly dispense justice?