When I received the summons for Jury Duty I decided to frame it as a much-needed break from work. I anticipated a week to sit and read in the assembly room, hopefully left alone by the other hundred or so Jurors. Instead, this fourth time around has made me angry, predominantly at myself, but also at our justice system, and people in general.
My first day progressed as I thought it would; six hours of reading and two going through the voir dir process before being excused. “Voir dir” is a Q&A process allowing the lawyers an opportunity to get a feel for our personalities and our likely views on their case. They allude to some case background, and of course, the human mind rushes in to fill the gap. Like probably every other juror I imagined I had figured out the parameters of the case and who I felt justice should serve.
Monday’s case involved a left-hand turn accident, an extensive amount of chiropractic service and a question about who was responsible to pay that bill. Neither lawyer asked and I probably wouldn’t have answered in this way, but there’s a part of me that thinks Chiropractors are whack! I admit that assumption is based upon stereotypes, only minimal experience and absolutely no research. Nonetheless, any decision I made would be based upon my feeling that I was certain.
The plaintiff was black. He was the only black person in the room. In voir dir his lawyer asked for those of us who were racist to raise our hands. Now, in our politically correct climate, I can’t imagine a single white person raising their hands. That could (or could not) account for the lawyer’s hesitation, stumbling over his words, and finally defending his question. I can’t read his mind, but it seemed to me that he was not only uncomfortable with asking the question, but in having to ask it. From my own past experience, I find that many people live lives I’d call self-segregated and are oblivious to stereotypes they hold as true. I had wished he had followed up his question with others, asking us if we worked with, or lived nearby to, or socialized with people of color, and if our experiences with “difference” were positive or negative.
Late in the morning of Day Two forty of us were dispatched to a criminal court. It was not lost on me, again, that thirty-six of us jurors were white, and that with the exception of one black female juror, the defendant, a male, was the only other black person in the room. When asked if we were to vote right then on the guilt or innocence of his client, I answered that I’d presume he was innocent. In criminal cases, aren’t we supposed to presume the accused is innocent until proven guilty? Apparently, that was the wrong response, because nearly everyone said they assumed he was guilty, because why else would we be here.
The case was a drug case, or rather, a non-drug case. The accused allegedly had been arrested in a Bust-buy operation for dealing bunk. Bunk, which was my new vocabulary word for the day, is “street” for selling a substance other than a drug and pretending it’s a drug. Unfortunately, several of the forty potential jurors had family members or close friends suffer through or die from drug addictions: methadone being the drug most frequently cited. Others lived in Bell town which recently had a large sting operation in which 31 persons from a Honduran drug ring were arrested (according to the Times). Others mentioned a strong dislike for drugs in general, due, they said, to the associated violence.
Guilty or not, there was a lot of crying and hostility in that room, and it was directed at the defendant.
When the Prosecuting lawyer asked about our personal experiences with Police, I knew then that I would eventually be excused. I have relatively few positive personal experiences, and a fair catalog of negative experiences to draw from. Before you can be excused for causes you have to state that you would be biased. Clearly, I was biased, but I wouldn’t state it. Even though we live through our filters, none of us like to admit we will be anything but objective.
Later, the Prosecutor asked if we would be “comfortable” making a decision on this case. She asked this question individually instead of posing it to the whole. Except for one woman who admitted that she was already biased toward the defendant, everyone said they would be comfortable. I changed it up and said that “I would be able to work within the scope of the law”, which in its muddled fashion could mean I’m comfortable. And this is where I am angry at myself. I wouldn’t be comfortable sitting in on a drug case. I especially wouldn’t be sitting in on a drug case in which the accused is black. What I should have said was “No.” In my frame of reference the war on drugs is a war against Seattle’s poor and black population.
Several studies have been made and they conclude that blacks are significantly over-represented, and whites under-represented among the arrested. For all the drug addicts represented in that room, they were each, after all, white. According to what’s known as the “racial congruity thesis” people buy from within their own ethnicity. In other words, the sellers that sold to their family and friends were white. What I should have said was “No, I would not be comfortable”, because the majority of sellers are white, yet over 64% of those arrested are black. I would have pointed out that the UW, which has an even smaller percentage of black sellers than other areas, is nearly over-looked by the SPD, who focuses their resources into Bust-buy operations in racially diverse neighborhoods. (Read Race and Drug Law Enforcement in Seattle by Katherine Beckett for the Racial Disparity Project, 2004).
King County is reportedly one of the four most active drug markets in the country. Apparently, we have issues here with drugs and they shouldn’t be over-looked or trivialized. I just don’t see how institutionalizing our black population is a valid response.
It was clear to me that in that room people saw the defendant not only guilty, but that he was the source of their personal grief.
While thinking up excuses for my “within the scope” lame answer, for my apparent inability to connect to and articulate truths I already know, and even to find some way to forgive myself, I started thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, especially tier three, our human need to belong.
The need to belong is a potent human force which while I frequently imagine is all feel-good happiness, it isn’t always a positive thing. I find that in responding to the lawyers, some bizarre grade-school dynamic gets triggered, and I want to have the “right” answer to their questions. I also get triggered into wanting at least one of the lawyers to like me, kind of like being teachers-pet. Not so much in the first court room, but in this court, I wanted to belong. To belong to the story, to hear how it played out, and the only way I felt in that moment was to belong to the jury. I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s need to belong trumps their reason. Though I don’t imagine my drive to belong was tied to the forty others through their fear, through their racialized conceptions of who and what comprises the drug problem in Seattle, still I feel that I’ve failed to be the best person I can be. And that makes me very uncomfortable.
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