L&O: CC – The Conclusion of a Special 2-Part Episode

In the criminal justice system, the people are also represented by a third important group who normally go completely unnoticed: the jury. This is their story.

DUN-dun!

Previously on L&O: CC, the jury selection process. On tonight’s episode: the trial.

The trial began on a Tuesday morning bright and early. Okay, 9:30 (court keeps some pretty relaxed hours, really; our first “day” of jury selection was actually 9:30-12:15). I came to regret my decision to wear suspenders – not because of the fashion faux pas my wife warned of, but because I set off the metal detector. So once again my arrival fell into the general 9:29ish category.

Not long thereafter, we settled into our comfortable yet squeaky chairs for opening arguments. Problem #1: the judge doesn’t allow note-taking. He wants us listening instead of scribbling; I’m shocked at his lack of concern for those of us who are bloggers. Hard to get the good stuff without writing it down!

I do make a few general observations pretty quickly: first of all, it’s really dimly lit, the exact opposite of a television studio. Almost restful, as I would find to my chagrin after perhaps a little too much lunch.

There’s no gallery, which is going to deprive us of the legendary Perry Mason finish. I suppose it’s still possible one of the witnesses will jump up and say he did it. Or, who knows, maybe a juror. Although only the foreman generally gets a line.

Court reporters on TV don’t get lines either – just the standard shot of her (always “her”, right?) tapping away. This one talks more than the judge, constantly interrupting to ask the witness to repeat himself. I’m on the verge of asking her to switch places.

The case concerns a man who went to an instant oil-change place. During the service, he was standing next to the car when it began to roll. He jumped in front to stop it, but was pinned against the garage door and severely fractured his leg.

The basic facts are not in dispute; the plaintiff says it's the garage's fault for letting him stand next to the car, and they must have done something to make it roll. The defendant says he wouldn’t have been hurt if he hadn’t jumped in front of the car... which is certainly true in the “fact” sense; we’ll have to see if it holds up in the “liability” sense.

I think opening arguments are kind of like the opening act at a concert. Nobody’s there to see that part, and nobody pays any attention to it anyway. It’s just sound; in this case the opening arguments boil down to:

• My client has been wronged, and his life is ruined, so you’ll want to give him a bunch of money.
• We didn’t do anything, the guy jumped in front of the car, and besides the car moving must’ve been an act of God.
  

Then we have witnesses, starting with the two mechanics on duty. Their stories are just enough different to leave you wondering what really happened. On the other hand, the incident was 2½ years ago, so it might be weirder if the accounts were identical.

We do get one stock moment when one of the mechanics says something and the plaintiff’s lawyer takes a pause. Then he pulls out a document and says, “Perhaps you need to refresh your memory...” The witness studies the paper, then says, “I must have said that but I don’t recall saying it.” Disappointingly, no one is hauled off to the Graybar Hotel for perjury (“Call my wife! Call my lawyer!”).

The plaintiff takes his turn. He’s kind of a mope and I take an instant dislike to him. I can also feel brain cells popping from the strain of trying to formulate all the facts and spin into a coherent, and impartial, account – mindful that it’s hard enough to know what happened, but I also need to know why, and who’s really responsible (and potentially, how much dough that’s worth).

On top of that, I’m very conscious of not only listening objectively but also appearing to be objective. I know the lawyers and the judge are watching, and I don’t want to look like I’m favoring one side or another. Fortunately, my default face is pretty expressionless anyway....

We also get an Expert Witness, in the field of... Auto Mechanics. Much discussion ensues about how the car moved and why it might have moved. Oddly, the thing that strikes me most about his testimony is that he is in fact expert at being a witness; if he’s asked a yes/no question, he answers only yes or no and waits for the follow-up question to supply the details. We are thus deprived of the classic: "Objection!" "Sustained -- the witness will confine himself to answering the question."

Now it’s midafternoon and the judge says we’re moving quicker than anticipated and have covered what was planned for today. Translation: the remaining witnesses are doctors and there’s no way they’ve been just sitting around waiting for their turn. As a result, we are adjourned. Day 2, 9:30-2:15 (with 2 breaks, and an hour and a half for lunch) – I could get used to these hours.

I’m getting the rhythm of this trial down; on Wednesday, I arrive at the jury room at... 9:29 (no suspenders, and I left my sunglasses in the car, so I breeze through the metal detector). The Court Officer says there will be a slight delay – the judge & lawyers are in conference. We immediately begin to speculate that it’s a settlement conference. After about a 45-minute wait, we are brought into the courtroom to be told that the parties in fact have settled; later, in the jury room, the judge tells us the plaintiff got $125K.

Looking around the room, the consensus seems to be that he wouldn’t have gotten that much from us; we weren’t entirely sold on his story, or the extent of his “pain and suffering”. And none of us can quite decide: is it cool that we got out without having to deliberate, or did we miss out on part of the experience? Overall, I’d say I’m just as happy not having to translate all that testimony into a dollar figure.

So in exchange for sitting in a chair for (parts of) 3 days, I'm off the hook for (at least) 6 years. Plus, now I know how those Perry Mason extras felt.

Law & Order: Civil Court

Now I know how the extras on Perry Mason felt.

A recent day's mail held the modern-day equivalent of the old Selective Service "Greetings". This one, however, came from the County Commisioner of Jurors, and requested my presence at the courthouse for a fun-filled week of jurisprudence.

Of course, the odds were still in my favor. Surely a hundred or more similarly civic-minded citizens were being summoned as well -- after all, my number was 65.

Secure in the "knowledge" that I was off the hook, I completely forgot to call in till bedtime that Sunday night, when my wife said, "Hey, don't you have jury duty tomorrow?" So I dug the instructions out of My Pile, confident that I wouldn't need to go at all... but the recorded announcement said numbers 2-80 should report between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m. the next morning.

Unfortunately, I have a hearing problem: if you say "between 8:30 and 9:30", I hear "as the second hand hits 9:29:59". And it would have worked, too... if not for the school bus I met. Or the fact that I parked at the wrong end of the "municipal complex". Or the metal detector at the courthouse door.

In any case, when I got there, the Jury Spiel was already (just, okay?) under way. Even so, walking in I noted that there were perhaps 40 people in the room -- a far cry from the almost 80 I was anticipating.

The orientation process included a video, narrated by (among others) Ed Bradley -- slightly unsettling, as he had only just "signed off for the last time" four days before. The highlight, by far, of the video was a recreation of the practice of Trial By Ordeal of Cold Water, which so neatly parallels the corresponding scene in Monty Python & the Holy Grail that I couldn't help but chortle (and wonder aloud if we would get to practice a similar form of justice).

We had almost completed the video when half of us were summoned to a courtroom, and suddenly I began to get a picture of my true odds: 21 people in the room, choosing 8... and then some guy says, "I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow," and the judge says, "Sure, no problem," and now it's 20. Since everyone's got an equal chance of landing in any of those 8 chairs (and they're all equally stuck), I have an 8/20 chance of being snagged: 40%.

Naturally, I felt a bit smug when 8 names were called and I was missed. And I have to admit, it was pretty entertaining watching them being quizzed, and realizing that some of them were clearly not going to make the final cut -- right up until the penny finally dropped and an inner voice started yelling "dummy, if somebody goes home you're back on the hook!"

Sure enough, 5 stay and 3 go; now it's 12 bodies for 3 seats (25%). Another round of calls, another bullet dodged... before I know it, 12 have been called (the gallery where I'm sitting is starting to look like the stands at a Tampa Bay Devil Rays game), but only 6 chosen: 2 seats left and I'm back to a 25% chance. And then, the hammer falls.

Now we all know there's more than one way to answer a question, and it would have been a simple thing to spin one of those "can you be impartial" kinds of queries to get a free ticket out the door. I felt that several of the dearly departed were very careful to stress attitudes that ensured they would be voted off the island; I decided it would be a worthwhile and interesting experience to stick around, so I played it straight.

Some of those who got the boot actually came after me -- we ended up running through a total of 18 of the group of 20 in order to assemble a panel of 8. And the two who turned right around and went home without even speaking are still excused from jury duty for a minimum of 6 years!

So, as the Book of Genesis would have it, there was an evening and a morning, the first day of my experience as one tooth on one cog in the enormous intertwined system of gears that is Our Justice System. In the next episode of Law & Order: Civil Court, the trial begins!

Truth, Justice and the American Way

Here in the carefully-vague region of "Upstate New York" -- if I'm being overly cautious in revealing personal details, it's only because I'm trying to avoid the inevitable onslaught of paparazzi -- we've recently emerged from the sludge of Election Campaign Season. I've discovered that you can use all the Windex you want on your TV screen, but it's still hard to watch when the film of slime is coming from inside the set.

Our Congressional race was famed far and wide for the brutal, yet juvenile, tone of its advertising. I think most of us who have seen a few campaigns knew that the relatively unknown challenger had to kick up a bit of fuss to be noticed; incumbents have an enormous built-in advantage in money and recognition. And certainly, the incumbent had a few, ah... foibles... that merited discussion.

But I, at least, was a bit surprised when the Congressman avoided discussing his performance record and instead eagerly embraced the Politics of Personal Attack himself. In the end, I believe it was the insight thus gained into his personality, and not any debate over his past performance (or, for that matter, the worth of his challenger), that made the difference in his somewhat surprising loss.

In the interview after her victory speech, the Congresswoman-elect noted that the incumbent hadn't aired a single ad about his own record. This appropriately enough was, like much of what we'd heard for weeks upon weeks, "more-or-less" true -- true in spirit, at least. Full of what Stephen Colbert would call "truthiness": the essence of being or at least seeming true, without actually being what the dictionary might identify as "accurate".

So in the continuing pursuit of Truth, Justice, and the American Way... I have the general sense that perhaps Truth was not 100% victorious in this case (not that it would have been any more so, if the outcome were reversed). Justice? You tell me; as I said, I suspect the result was largely self-inflicted, so there's a certain karmic justice, at least, in that.

And what about the American Way? The sad fact is that I think this now is the American Way. Someone once said we get the campaigns we deserve, and I fear that's correct. The West Wing was popular at least in part because it allowed us to think we like our politics noble -- that we'd all rush to vote for a man of principle like Jed Bartlett. I'm not sure, however, that the electoral records of those few who have told us the truth about who they are and what they hope to accomplish are all that glossy. Not that we have that much data to go on. And honestly, how different was the tone of this campaign from the tone that society in general has taken in recent times (as I discussed quite some time ago)?

Not long ago, a bunch of reporters from newspapers all over (including our own) gathered to discuss the political campaigns they'd covered, and our paper did a story featuring some of the most telling/amusing incidents. One of the anecdotes related concerned the candidate who put out a glossy brochure featuring a photo of his All-American family (we're in favor of that, right?) -- down to and including the faithful family dog.

However, as the candidate subsequently admitted... he'd rented the dog, to make the photo look more All-American.

Gee, I wonder why we're having so much of a problem with voter turnout?

Sure, Now You Listen

As a parent, you seek every day to help your children absorb all the lessons they'll need to grow and learn and become the people you want them to be. So naturally, when they demonstrate that they've really "gotten" something, it gives a parent a rush of pleasure. Right?

Well, as it turns out, that may depend.

One of the relatively small things we spend time discussing is table manners, which aren't necessarily top priority for a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old. We're not bad at please & thank you, but food-related behavior is often up for grabs.

Recently my son was having crackers & peanut butter for the Ritual Afternoon Snack; he is, as I have mentioned, a creature of the clock, and if he sees it hit 3:00 he will remind me that it's snack time before the colon blinks again. He loves crackers and nearly lives for peanut butter, so naturally he put a whole Ritz in his mouth. Not for the first time, I reminded him that "we need to take bites". He gave me the look he often gives me, which translates roughly into "you didn't see that, did you?" (Sometimes he even says that to me when I reprimand him for something: "You didn't see that!" It's probably my second favorite rejoinder of his, after: "You don't tell me what to do!" Um, that's actually most of my job description...)

That evening during supper, he got a chance to demonstrate that he was catching on. I popped a french fry into my mouth and he instantly said, "Dad, we're not supposed to put the whole thing in our mouth." I briefly considered explaining to him that it was really a bite-size fry -- but I figured it was best to affirm him for recognizing the lesson, so I began to apologize to him for breaking the rule.

So my daughter broke in quickly and said, "Dad, we don't talk with our mouths full!"

With No Direction Home

One of the best ways to tell whether I'm awake is to note whether I'm reading. While we discontinued the newspaper briefly when the kids were tiny, for a few years now I've had my daily dose of text delivered to the door -- to go with four weekly publications and a houseful of books. Along with the advent of the Internet, I rarely have to fall back on cereal boxes to get my daily fix.

I've also very much enjoyed having a fresh Sudoku arrive every day (two on Sundays!) -- at least in theory. For some reason, our local newspaper is publishing the Short Attention Span Theater version of Sudoku. They are so painfully simple that they never take me more than 10 minutes, and usually 5 or less.

The problem is that the Puzzle Center in my brain is just starting to wake up at that point and still wants to play. So I've gotten into the habit of tackling the crossword puzzle located on the same page. I'm not a crossword maven, but with a mother and aunt who structure their day around the morning puzzle, there's definitely a strand of it entwined in my DNA. The newspaper crossword is not overly difficult, so I've had reasonable success.

My daughter found a way to increase the challenge level, however. Finding herself with the day's newspaper and a pair of scissors (and minimal supervision, apparently), and knowing my fondness for puzzles, she cut out the crossword, sought me out and presented it to me with a flourish.

Unfortunately no one had the chance to explain to her that in order to do the puzzle, dad would also need the clues.

But you know, I see this kind of thing going on around me all the time. The virtue seemingly most prized in today’s world is “tolerance”, which at one time meant “respecting the right of others to have different viewpoints and beliefs”. The new & improved Y2K definition appears to be “believing everyone’s viewpoints and beliefs are equally valid”.

When you carry this to its logical conclusion, there’s no way for parents to teach their kids the difference between right and wrong – if there are no absolutes and it all depends on the situation and “what feels right to you.”

I think those of us who were raised to believe that there are moral absolutes would probably testify that we’ve seen some disturbing and even tragic choices come out of this approach to life. Recently, however, I've found myself feeling sorry for the young minds that have been put in this spot. After all, it’s hard enough to Do the Right Thing when you have some idea what the Right Thing is. It must be a truly helpless feeling to try to make decisions, some of them potentially life-changing, with absolutely nothing to go on. As Rich Mullins wrote in another of my favorite Neglected Classic songs, “The Maker of Noses”:

They said boy you just follow your heart -- but my heart just led me into my chest
They said follow your nose, but the direction changed every time I went and turned my head
And they said boy you just follow your dreams -- but my dreams were only misty notions
But the Father of hearts and the Maker of noses
And the Giver of dreams: He's the one I have chosen
And I will follow Him

I don't lay claim to a perfect record of making perfect choices, but I'm certainly glad that I have something, and Someone, to base them on (the poor choices have more to do with my own Short Attention Span). The puzzle's hard enough to do when you have the clues.