Jury Duty III- Get to the Point!

Eventually, the blonde who had shown up an hour and fifteen minutes late, and whose cell phone rang while the court officer took attendance, sat beside me. The jury had been selected. "Who shows up an hour and fifteen minutes late for jury duty?" I wondered practically aloud as she took her seat.....

There were three charges to be deliberated upon:
1. Assault with a dangerous weapon (in this case, a gun capable of firing 7, twenty-two caliber bullets).
2. Possession of a firearm without a license.
3. Unlawful discharge of said weapon.

From the testimonies of various members of the O'Boston Police Department, the fact that a shooting had taken place became crystal clear by the time the victim of the shooting in question took the stand. Who done it, on the other hand, remained to be seen or even discussed.

I expected a homeless looking man to enter. A man suiting the "neighborhood junkie" description. As a heavy set gentlemen wearing diamond earrings, sporting a mustache, corn-rows, baggy jeans, a Ralph Lauren shirt, and immaculately clean Nike high-tops, limped into the courtroom and up to the witness stand, I was not surprised. In fact, I scoffed at the inaccuracy of my own expectation.

As he was cross-examined by a young assistant DA, his checkered past was confirmed. The victim had been shot before. He had, in fact, struggled with addiction throughout his adult life. He was even on probation at the time of the incident. Moreover, he had slipped up on that fateful day. As the assistant DA would remind us throughout the trial, these things did not make him the deserving victim of a shooting.

Mr. Jackson had been drinking 22's of Heineken and blowing coke all day at a park in Boston. Out of beer, he had walked, with a friend, from the park to that friend's apartment to get money for more beer. While the friend went upstairs, our victim remained on the front stoop. Another associate of the victim, ironically enough headed to the liquor store himself, had been summoned to the stoop where the two were engaged in conversation.

Moments later two "black youths" would emerge on bicycles from an adjacent alley. Both wearing bandanas over their faces, they put their bikes down on the curb and took steps toward Mr. Jackson. By the time his gaze had been drawn away from his conversation in their direction, shots were being fired.

"All I really saw was the pop and the barrel of the gun." Admittedly no stranger to this sort of circumstance, Mr. Jackson turned away, fell to the stairs and tried to make himself as small of a target as possible. Seven shots were fired; a fact confirmed by testimony from the O'Boston ballistics unit. One shot went through the heal of his sneaker and lodged in his foot.

Throughout his testimony, during which defense attorney and DA alike had to remind Mr. Jackson to speak up, I looked over to where the defendant sat. He wore the same expression of which I had taken notice upon entering the courtroom hours earlier. It never changed.

At one point Mr. Jackson was asked to point out and describe the man who shot him, if he was in fact present in the courtroom. Mr. Jackson's eyes shot to the ground. Obviously uncomfortable with what he had been asked to do, he reluctantly pointed to the defendant, though never looking in his direction.

As we adjourned for the day, I expected the prosecution to produce the gun at some point the following day. They never did. Moreover, Mr. Jackson hadn't pulled the defendant out of a lineup until 15 days after the shooting. Having told the police at the scene he would not be able to pick the assailant out of a lineup, Mr. Jackson was in the hospital for the next 10 days, presumably being treated for his gunshot wound and cocaine withdrawl. Days later, from the apartment of a family member, Mr. Jackson saw on the street below a youth whom he believed to be his shooter. His cousin confirmed the name of the defendant as he rode by. It was only at this point he went to the police confident enough to pick his attacker out of a lineup.

After the judge's having explained procedurally how we were to arrive at and deliver the verdict, I stood and filed out of the courtroom certain we'd be re-emerging shortly with a verdict of not guilty. How confident could any of us have been that the boy Mr. Jackson had picked out of the lineup was the same boy he'd seen on the sidewalk AND the same boy who had shot him 15 days prior?

First, we systematically examined all of the evidence piece by piece. As one of my peers noted, "We owe it to Mr. Jackson."

As we tore off corners of yellow legal paper on which we were to deliver our initial verdicts, I sighed, fatigued though satisfied we had done our civic duty. I was proud to have served in a jury on which race had not been an issue. A jury that took its duty very seriously.

"Not guilty....Not guilty......Not guilty.......Guilty..........Guilty......Not guilty," the jury foreperson read through her brogue.

My eyes shot around the room, Who are they? Who didn't understand 'beyond a reasonable doubt'?

Three hours later, we had the necessary six votes. Coincidence or not, both reluctant jurors were foreign born. One, an Irish woman who had six months ago become an American citizen, worked in a rehab clinic. One of her reasons for her initial verdict, in fact, was the hyperawareness that comes with cocaine use- a symptom she had experience with first-hand. "It's a stimulant she authoritatively told the rest of us." Never mind the potentially confounding effects when mixed with alcohol. The other, a Cuban woman, had moved to the United States as a child. A practicing psychotherapist and lesbian, "It is very possible that Mr. Jackson could have accurately recognized and identified his attacker upon seeing him on the street some two weeks later." Well yeah, that's great but was this enough to throw someone in jail?

We talked about our biases. "What if Mr. Jackson had been white?" Someone offered.

"We'd have delivered a verdict of not guilty an hour ago," I replied, trying to hide my contempt for the direction of our conversation."

He could have done it. He looks like he might have." Someone else added.

As we approached our third hour of deliberation I grew frustrated, opting instead of continuing to work to explain the meaning of "beyond a reasonable doubt", for silence and a look out the window. Eventually, however, reason and objectivity reigned. We notified the court officer and were brought into back into the courtroom.

As the verdicts were read, I stared at the defendant. I was looking for something. Anything. I had not seen a single sign of human emotion in the hours upon hours I had spent in his presence. This did not change though. Not at all. I suppose, on some level, I wanted to be able to tell from him that he realized and appreciated that an all white jury had ultimately been objective enough not to declare him guilty on the basis of race, appearance, and neighborhood. As became so apparent in deliberations, a guilty verdict would have been just that.

Satisfied, though disappointed, we once again filed out of the courtroom and into our room. We were to wait there for the judge who wanted to thank us personally for fulfilling our civic duty.

"Any questions?... About any part of the process?" He asked.

"The defendant just gets to go home now, right?" I offered."No. He's actually serving time for an entirely separate incident."