How I got out of jury duty, but not out of duty, and the jury is still out on my behavior

Today I had to report to jury duty.  I don’t exactly mind jury duty, in principle.  I think of it as part of being a good citizen.  In practice, it always comes at an inconvenient time, it involves sitting in uncomfortable chairs for long periods, and, this time, I got to do it in a socially-distant fashion wearing a mask.  And all of that was the easy part.

 

I showed up before 8:30, when my call time was, because I am pathologically early for everything.  I went through the metal detector, filled out a health form, submitted my summons to the nice lady behind the plexiglass, filled out an in-person version of the form I already filled out and submitted on line, and sat.  I read.  I played with my phone.  I took an illicit photo of the wall of the jury assembly room.  About 10:30, they gave us a short break from the nothing that was happening.  Not too long after we returned, they announced sixteen randomly-selected names to go to the actual courtroom.  Mine was one of them.

 

The judge was an older white man with thick silver hair.  He gave a lengthy speech about the history of the Constitution that was deeply white and Eurocentric.  I did not expect to be lectured.  And I did not particularly want to hear yet another version of American history that glorified the improvements made over English law while ignoring the very real dispossession and genocide against native peoples, the capture and forced labor of African people, and the fact that all the improvements didn’t apply to black, brown, or female people.  It was the beginning of the deeper discomfort of the day.

 

The trial was a criminal matter.  The defendant was a young black man.  He was represented by a young, white public defender in a rumpled suit and rumpled beard.  The prosecutor was also a young white man, but clean-shaven and slightly slicker.  I began to feel more anxious watching the white apparatus surrounding a black defendant.  Then it got worse.

 

The defendant was accused of domestic violence.

 

Please note:  I did not get seated on this jury, so I heard no evidence of any kind.  I did not even hear the details of the alleged crime, just that the man in front of me was accused of violence against a domestic partner or parent of his child.  What follows is not about his guilt or innocence.  It is about my thoughts, inferences, emotions.  I hope that the jury that hears his case deliberates fairly and that justice is done.  I know that I would not be a good agent of justice in this matter.

 

Why?

 

I answered honestly, when asked, if I could hear the evidence impartially.  I could not.

 

I am not a survivor of domestic violence.  My ex-husband never hit me.  I think, in part, this is because he succumbed to the alcoholism after the divorce.  He came from an alcoholic family headed by a cop father.  He and his sister learned not to call the police when his father hit his mother because it did no good; the cops who came did not want to run in one of their own.

 

Alcohol lost my ex-husband all contact with his children.  They will not speak to him.  On the last day he spent with my younger son, he got so drunk that he had to be hospitalized, swearing up and down the whole time that he hadn’t been drinking.  I picked up my son and dropped my ex at his place.  His girlfriend was there, nervous.  Later that night, she had to call the cops because he beat her up.

 

I cannot be impartial about domestic violence.  I cannot pretend to be impartial in a system where the defendant is quite possibly on trial at least partially due to the color of his skin.  I cannot feel like it is fair for a bunch of white people, judge, lawyers, and me as a potential juror, to pass judgment on a young black man.  And, had I been called to listen to the testimony of the victim, how could I hope that this collection of men would choose to give justice to a woman?

 

I wrote on the questionnaire, the one I filled out twice, that I felt our justice system is skewed against people of color, women, and poor people.  That was before I heard even the outline of the case to be tried.  I feel it even more now.

 

I am not impartial.  None of us are.