Jury Duty

This week finds me in the first half of my jury duty commitment and already I have sat on a jury and became part of a process that found a man guilty of driving under the influence.  The true nature of "innocent until proven guilty" struck me for the first time this week.  Having the chance to sit in court and watch a man, whose civil liberties were on the line for a choice he made, react to the prosecutor's case for his guilt. 

At one point, true to his plea, the defendant wholly believed his innocence, that his blood alcohol content did not indicate a violation of the law, that he was in the right and should be in the clear.  But slowly his countenance changed, over the course of prosecutor's case he crumbled and at the end of the second day he was a guilty man.  Not based on evidence alone, though it was irrefutable that his blood alcohol level was over the legal limit, rather his demeanor as his posture failed and his face fell and he could hardly keep his chin up for the tears that threatened to be revealed.

Passing judgement on someone for something I'm sure I have done was a humbling experience. 

Realizing that there are liberties he will lose offers some perspective.

Six jurors were chosen (this was district court), people I'd never seen or met before, from a dynamic cross section of life and experience.  From these two days we developed a subtle bond of friendship and commitment, believing collectively in the evidence presented brought us together in a way I can not entirely understand.  Perfect strangers in unanimous agreement.

By the time the trial was in its closing stages there was little, or no, other option to come too, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the defendant was guilty of the offense he committed.  But in retrospect it could have been so different.  The defense could have found opened holes in the testimonies of witnesses for the prosecution--as he so nearly did--not revealing lies but developing doubts and minor inconsistencies and that is all he needed to do.  If he had been successful the result would have been dramatically different.

I don't, in general, have a lot of faith in people's opinion to think for themselves.  I have listened to to many politically charged propaganda spiels from the mouths of friends, acquaintances, and protesters on the street that were lifted directly from their favorite extremist personality or association.  But over the course of two days my faith in the human mind to take in and comprehend facts and reason has been restored by some degree.

Jury duty was a terrible inconvenience and the process is littered with wasted time as the logistics and decisions are made on the fly.  Yet I don't feel it was a waste--though I am not eager for another trial--rather I have a new appreciation of the dedication lawyers have to their practice, the knowledge a judge relies on to pass judgement and mediate a trial, and the legal process itself with its strict protocols.

When the system works as it is supposed to work then we are a privileged society.  When it fails, as I am sure it does, the result is disastrous.  I look at the liberties I assume and have taken for granted for so long today differently than I did three days ago.  We are privileged to be free and to assume a great deal of freedoms until choice or situation forces us to do something regrettable upon which a jury of our peers will cast judgement.