I could have lied and possibly served on the jury with SpongeBob. I didn't, though. Did I make a bad choice?
I had jury duty last week. It was the first time I'd even gotten past the initial card-in-the-mail stage to where I actually had to go to the courthouse. Before heading there I distinctly recall telling my girlfriend that whether I served or not would depend on whether or not I would be by chance expected to hear a drug case.
Naturally I would be, I figured. What else do criminal courts do these days? And naturally I was.
I sat in a room at the DC courthouse waiting with about 200 other people, killing time before possibly being called to go through the selection process (voir dire) with a few dozen others. (At some point I was told a judge needs about three-dozen jurors before they can begin a trial.) I read the free dailies while looking jealously at the guy in front of me who had remembered to bring both his laptop and iPod.
I never bring my laptop anywhere. It's now essentially just a desktop that sits on various desks, or the kitchen table, or the coffee table. Because of this it's getting fat, losing pigment, and is starting to get bed sores. The iPod has a different problem -- because I drive to work I only use it at the gym. So it's in great shape. But I haven't added any songs in about 6 months. So the iPod, like the laptop, is bored with me. But I digress.
After about 25 minutes a woman came in to the waiting room and took attendance, calling each person by last name and last three numbers on one's jury card. "Linnekin 923?"
"Here," I said.
About 15 minutes later she returned a called various names of people who would become potential jurors. I was part of the second group. We left the waiting room and met in the hall -- the 50-or-so of us. I looked around. Computer/iPod guy was there. So was one woman who looked like she must be severely mentally challenged. She had thick glasses on, and wore a pair of SpongeBob sneakers over horizontally striped tights.
We went down to the courtroom, where a court staffer lined us up by number in a seemingly random way. I was towards the middle of the pack. The court officer no longer referred to us by name -- just number -- presumably so that the family of the plaintiff or defendant wouldn't be able to follow us home and try to bribe or kill us. I looked around and noted SpongeBob two spaces behind me.
We went into the courtroom in the order we'd been arranged and were seated. We swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help us. There was no mention of god, which pleased me.
We were handed a questionnaire, which the surprisingly good-natured judge told us we would shortly be asked to fill out in pencil. Then he gave us a summary of the case. The defendant, a young black male from Maryland who was seated at the defendant's table in the courtroom, was alleged to have been arrested with 100 tabs of ecstasy (which the state claimed was for sale) and a personal amount of cocaine.
The judge then directed us to the questionnaire. There were routine questions like "Do you know the defendant?" and "Do you know the prosecutor/defense atty.?" The assumption on the part of the court is that most people will answer "No" to each question. (In fact, one answers "No" by simply filling in no answer at all.) If we answer yes to any question, we were to do so on the left-hand side of the paper, the judge said.
"Which is left?" SpongeBob asked the man seated between us, to my right.
There were a couple of questions, though, that for me required a "Yes" answer. Taken as a set, they essentially asked if there was any reason I could not be fair to both sides in this case. Since I don't believe possession, sale (to adults) or use of any amount of any drug is a crime, I wrote "Yes".
After a court-ordered two-hour lunch break (which included a very good sandwich and cold beer at Andale), I returned to the courtroom.
The judge called up each juror, in order, to his bench. (We weren't "called" so much I suppose as we were to pay attention to the progress of the person in front of us and act accordingly.) While the judged asked the prospective juror about his or her responses to the questionnaire, the prosecutor and defense attorney flanked the prospect, occasionally taking notes. I had no way of hearing what anyone was saying due to a steady, loud hiss of white noise played over a speaker system in the courtroom.
When it was my turn I approached the bench and handed my questionnaire to the judge. He looked it over, noted my "Yes" responses, and asked me why I couldn't be fair in this case. I responded that I could not be fair to the prosecution because I was in favor of an adult's right to buy/sell (under the condition outlined above)/use drugs, and that I thought all drugs should be legalized right now.
I had a sense the defense attorney was smiling and the prosecutor was scowling, but my eyes were locked straight ahead, so I have no idea if that was the case.
The judge told me it was fine if I favored drug legalization, but asked me if I would be able to uphold the law as written. I said I could not on moral and ideological grounds, and said to him, "There's no way I would find this defendant guilty as charged."
With that the judge thanked me for my honesty (which surprised me) and told me I was dismissed from further service (which did not). I went back to my seat and gathered my belongings. I lingered to see the judge's interaction with SpongeBob. Though I left before seeing if she'd been called or not, I got the sense she was not dismissed from service (as I presumably would have seen her while waiting in line to turn in my badge upstairs).
Over the next few days I asked a few friends who know more than a thing or two about the courts, drugs, and legalization what they thought of my choice to tell the truth. I was (and still am) in the midst of a crisis of confidence. Should I have lied (or fudged my answers) to get on the jury so that this twenty-something defendant who was charged with no real crime would not be thrown to the wolves (and, quite possibly, to SpongeBob)? Or did I, as the judge said, do the right thing by telling the truth? I won't share my friends responses because I'm still hoping for more and don't want to taint the potential pool of responses, so to speak.
I'll end here by asking readers: Do you think I did the right thing? Why or why not? What would you have done? What's the moral or ideological basis for your argument?
Post your responses in comments or drop me an email. I'll post something on your feedback at a later date.
