By Mark Rahner, Journal and Courier
They never show this stuff on Law and Order. But no wonder Michael Moriarty was so uptight.
I was already in a homicidal mood because someone had violated my Constitutional right not to get up at 7:30 a.m. So I was exercising my Constitutional right to guzzle a lot of coffee on the way to jury duty.
They'd have to excuse me: A police reporter can't serve on a criminal trial. Exercising my Constitutional right to have a hangover could interfere. Or I'd explain my deep philosophical conviction that all accused criminals deserve the chair.
I practiced, with a faint Hoosier drawl: If they wasn't guilty, they wouldn't be accused.
The accused was one Otis Frederick Sense, a.k.a. Frederick Otis Sense (the judge had to say both names with each reference). He didn't even have the sense to show up for his own burglary trial. He was accused of breaking into a house, lifting a portable CD player, then unloading it for $20.
Not exactly Inherit the Wind, but at least it would be over in a day if I got picked in the voir dire, the questioning for weeding out people who shouldn't be jurors.
I lucked out of the first group, but took umbrage anyway at how the judge and the prosecutor both spoke to them, like even more condescending versions of Al Gore. Very slow and very simple, as if they were speaking to mentally handicapped children. Hey, I thought: Midwesterners have more innate common sense than, say, anyone who was ever in the O.J. Simpson jury pool.
But then the excuses began.
A woman had problems sitting for long stretches.
Naturally. Must be a life-threatening buttocks condition.
Ding.
An astute former political science major babbled to the prosecutor something about the Fifth Amendment. He had skillfully noticed the absence of Frederick Otis Sense, a.k.a. Otis Frederick Sense, and had a deep philosophical problem with the presumption of innocence.
My eyes rolled all the way back into my esophagus.
He wouldn't shut up, saying earnestly that he'd really, really try to put his prejudices out of his mind.
It ain't a complicated theoretical issue, buddy. It's a lousy CD player.
Ding.
When the prosecutor asked one woman in the box how she felt about serving, she said she was nervous. Her excuse:
"This just isn't me."
With superhuman patience, he explained why it was her, and how she was eminently qualified to be on the jury of Frederick Otis Sense, a.k.a. Otis Frederick Sense. Apparently it was a self-esteem thing and she stayed.
Another woman felt she should be discharged from her civic duty because she couldn't judge anyone. Religious reasons.
I let out an audible groan.
With divine patience, the prosecutor explained all she had to do: decide if each essential element of the charge is proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Yes or no. And the actual judge handles the penalty.
Nope. Couldn't do it.
Jeez: It's a CD player. Just give him the chair, OK?
Ding.
God doesn't want His children to use their powers of rationality. Nice one, lady.
A Purdue girl didn't want to miss a day of cheerleading practice. She stayed.
Ha! But how will you ever make it up?
Since one witness would be a cop, the prosecutor asked the nice folks how they felt about cops. A woman said she had a problem with cops, because of things she had seen where she used to live, in Florida.
Ding.
Oooh, the trauma. Can't ever trust The Man.
Her problem with The Man became clear later. There was a warrant out for her. An officer politely escorted her from a room where the unpicked prospective jurors waited to see if they were needed in another court.
Big ding.
It ended up taking nearly three hours to pick 12 Angry Men who couldn't weasel out of jury duty, to decide that F.O.S., a.k.a. O.F.S. was guilty of burgling a stinkin' CD player. And by then the judge and prosecutor were both like teachers of a remedial grade school class, who'd heard every lame-o excuse ever devised by shiftless, shameless, dim-witted kids who didn't bring their homework. Hundreds of times.
I felt like scum for contemplating excuses of my own, even if the hangover thing was true. If I had been the prosecutor, after the third excuse I would have vaulted into the jury box and dispensed justice into the someone's whining piehole.
All that had stopped me so far was the prospect of being tried for it.
Rahner is a reporter for the Journal and Courier. You can write to him by e-mail at rahner@journal-courier.com.
Copyright © 1996-1997, Federated Publications Inc.
return to Mark Rahner's Magnificent Articles
