May 11, 2006
My Civic Duty
Note: This originally took place back in January, but I only wrote up part of it then. I just found it in my saved drafts and went ahead and finished it out. If it seems disjointed, that is because nearly 4 months passed between when it was started and when it was finished. On to the story.
So yesterday I had the opportunity to perform my civic duty for the first time by way of sitting on a municipal court jury. I feel like the experience deserves a blog entry, so here we go.
We will join up with our main character...me... at approximately 8:30 AM on I-35 Northbound just past the I-35 / 290-71 flyover.
"SONOFABITCH!!!"
I'm trying to watch my mouth these days so as to provide a good example for Jonah but sometimes ISONOFADAMNEDBITCH!!!!
How can someone cut off another person twice using only one lane change? I experienced it. I saw it happen. It happened to me. I still have no idea how it worked.
I'm caught in traffic on my way to a jury summons and I am realizing that I may have cut my travel time just a bit too close. My palms are slightly damp because as far as I can tell from the myriad of ominous e-mail reminders I have received, anyone who is late for a jury summons will be summarily executed. With a brick.
8:45 AM
I arrive at the public parking lot and it is looking full. My hands are genuinely sweaty now. Some handicapped bastard gets the last open spot in the entire city of Austin. There is absolutely no way he needed it worse than I do. Seconds later a family of four beats me to the other last remaining parking spot in Austin. I bet the parents have a loveless marriage and I'm certain the kids are a huge dissapointment.
8:46 AM
A cab driver and I recklessly race through the lot competing for what turns out to be a small gap between two poorly parked giant SUVs. Neither of us can fit, but that doesn't stop the cab driver from swearing at me speeding off while making curt gestures with both hands. In my head his cab just exploded forcing a spot open for me to park in. His mangled sunglasses land smoking on the hood of my car.
8:47 AM
My armpits are soaked and I can feel myself working up a very respectable ass-sweat. God I've been driving around this lot for hours. I'm parched. I think I am running out of gas. I spot a pay lot on the other side of the street. I'm pretty sure its full, I have no cash, and there is probably no way I can get to it anyway. Everyone can go to hell.
8:48 AM
Sweat starts dripping into my eyes.
8:49 AM
I make it to the lot with no trouble, almost every spot is empty, and they take ATM cards. Looks like the trip to hell is off. Everybody take five.
8:51 AM
In the Municipal Court Building I glide through the metal detector and get into the elevator. The elevator's other passenger glances over.
"Jury duty?" he asks?
"Yeeeeaaaaaahhhh." Apparently I'm Lumbergh from Office Space.
"Yeah me too. I just got robbed." Umm...
"You got robbed?"
"Yeah I was trying to get change for parking from this black guy and he knocked my wallet out of my hands and took my cash from it."
"That sucks" is my helpful advice. My runner up responses were, "Oh Crap" and "Damn", neither of which seemed to really be adequate.
He closes out the conversation by dropping a huge F-bomb just as the elevator opens into a hall crowded with people, most notably a mother and her young daughter waiting right at the doors.
It should be noted that he looks like Dave Matthews if Dave Matthews had been through a long but ultimately losing boxing career.
8:53 AM
I enter the jury pool room on time narrowly avoiding execution. I sit down in the back row and manage to doze off for a while. I only wake up twice before the bailiff comes in to take role. The first time I wake up because the guy next to me is scratching off a lottery ticket as loudly as possible. He loses but pockets the ticket anyway. The second time I wake up because I overhear a woman in front of me talking to what appears to be a portable CD player. "Good boy," she tells it, "good boy." Ladies and gentlemen, these are your peers.
9:45
Once the bailiff takes role we go into the actual courtroom for the whole jury selection process. The judge rattles off some crap about doing our duty, yadda yadda yadda. Once that process is done he goes into qualifications and exemptions. When he finishes listing qualifications Dave Matthews pipes up: "Your honor may I approach the bench?" Is he Matlock? The judge stares at him. "Why?" Dave Matthews is clearly nervous. "Well your honor I don't think I am qualified." The judge is not impressed and frankly neither am I. Peering over his glasses, "Why?" Dave Matthews visibly gathers courage. "I'm a felon." BOOM! Nobody saw that one coming. The judge has been outplayed and he knows it. "You are excused and thank you for your time." Nicely done Dave.
Another jury member, seeing Dave's success grows bold. She is a large black woman who I believe works as a security guard. My assesment is based on her uniform and the badge she wears marked "Security Guard". We will call her Roz in honor of the Night Court character who she so closely resembles. So Roz pipes up, "I think I may be disqualified also." The judge plays it cautious, not wanting to get burned again. "Why?" She rolls the dice, "I was arrested once." The judge isn't ready to let go, "Were you convicted?" Uh oh, her bluff has been called. "I went to court," she informs us. I smirk in my head. The judge senses weakness. "What was the outcome of the trial?" She tosses up a Hail Mary, "I don't know." The judge lets her stew with a long, meaningful pause. She finally caves. "I think it might have been dismissed." Sorry Roz, you didn't have what it took. I can smell her shame as she takes her seat.
Next we get interviewed by the prosecution and the defense. It turns out that the case we are here to decide is an open container violation. The prosecutor is basically Dan from Night Court only on the other side of the courtroom. I can see a little slime dripping off of him. He asks us if any of us drink in the morning. No one. In the afternoon? Only one...me. "Sometimes I have a beer after work." In the evening? One other dude. No one else out of the 20 or so people in the room ever has a drink. Questionable. He rambles on a little further but he clearly does not give a sh-t about this case.
The defendant is an interesting fellow. He clearly knows his way around a 12-pack. He isn't visibly drunk, but I get the impression that he will be soon. According to him, his attorney was "unable to make it." He will be defending himself. His only question, "Have any of you ever been arrested for something you didn't think you should be arrested for?" Crickets. "No further questions."
10:00
We are dismissed while the defense and prosecution pick jurors. Only one important note here: The woman who was talking to her CD player was really talking to a GIANT golden retriever. She is blind. The retriever is her seeing eye dog. I am both reassured and disappointed.
10:20
We file back into the courtroom and they call out names for the 6 selected jurors. They call my name as I knew they would. My fellow jurors: Mr. Asian, Fantasia Barrino, Mrs. Blueberry, The Schoolteacher, and No-Face.
10:30
The trial begins. The prosecuter, slime flying every direction, informs us that the defendant (name withheld to protect the ridiculous) has been given a ticket for driving with an open alcohol container in his car. A cop pulled him over for speeding and found an open 12-pack on the front passenger seat with an empty can in it. The cop has a polaroid showing the empty can and the 12 pack. The defendant objects to the photo because it is "misleading." The judge overrules because the photo is in no way misleading. The prosecutor questions the cop about the incident. He pauses between questions for dramatic effect, but the effect is ruined because we can all see him doodling in his notepad while he tries to let the tension build.
The defendant cross-examines the cop but I can't even begin to recreate the incoherent babbling that occured during this time. Let me just state that all manner of conspiracy theories emerged involving everything ranging from a sort of rookie cop hazing procedure to police brutality to illegal search and seizure. The most memorable question was, "Is beer legal?" To which the cop responded, "Yes sir it is." The defendant wrapped up the question with, "Well I just wanted to make sure." When he finished his questions, everyone in the courtroom simply stared at him with their mouths hung open in disbelief.
10:50
We are again dismissed while final arguments are prepared.
11:00
We hear final arguments from both sides. The prosecutor basically says "He's guilty!" and sits down. The defendant starts with some even more unbelievable babbling. When he begins to introduce a set of new and even crazier theories the prosecutor objects to the introduction of new evidence. The judge sustains. This occurs four more times before the judge resigns himself to it and tells the prosecutor to "just let him talk." Finally he finishes. The only concept I was able to pull out of his maniacal torrent of words was that he didn't think the cops should have searched his car because they didn't know for a fact that he had an empty can.
Let me summarize the case facts here:
1) The defendant is pulled over for speeding.
2) The cop smells beer on the defendants breath and sees an open 12-pack on the passenger seat.
3) The cop asks the defendant to step out of the vehicle and administers a field sobriety test. The defendant passes.
4) The cop searches the defendant's car and finds an empty beer can jammed back into the open 12-pack
5) The defendant is issued a citation for an open container violation.
6) The cop takes a picture of the 12-pack with the empty can sitting beside it (he removed the can from the 12-pack to show that it was open and empty).
7) At no point did the defendant deny that he had an open container or that he knew it was in the car.
8) At no point did the defendant deny that he had alcohol on his breath.
11:10
We are sent to a deliberation room to come up with a verdict and a fine ranging from $1 to $500 if necessary. Once we are settled in the room, we take an initial verbal survey. The Schoolteacher: Guilty, Mrs. Blueberry: Guilty, Our Hero (me): Guilty, No-Face: Guilty, Fantasia Barrino: Guilty. Now we get to Mr. Asian. "I'm not so sure." Dammit. I should have known this guy was going to be trouble. "Frankly, I'm surprised I was even impaneled. I mean I am an attorney so I wouldn't think they would want me on the jury." Translation: "My dick is way too huge for me to be here. I'm so much smarter than everyone else that there is no way I'm going to vote for the obviously correct verdict. Did you guys see that movie 12 Angry Men? Thats my favorite movie. I'm like Henry Fonda in that movie." I wanted to impanel my foot in his ass.
Mr. Asian's name has now been changed to Asian Boy Wonder or ABW for short. ABW proceeds, "I just don't think the prosecution did a good job of presenting the case. They just didn't prove that he was guilty. I mean what if he was driving to church and someone had borrowed his car the night before and it was their beercan." I find it difficult to remain outwardly restrained while my brain is trying to strangle itself in my skull.
I calmly remind them that we just need to be beyond a reasonable doubt and that the defendant never denied having the empty container or that he knew the container was in his car. He also never denied that he had alcohol on his breath. ABW helpfully chimes in, "He doesn't have to if it would implicate him in any way." I counter, "Yes I know that, but we have the statement of the officer that he did have alcohol on his breath and that there was an empty beer can in his car with the remainder of a 12-pack. It probably would have helped his case if he had denied any of this. We also have a handy photograph that shows the alleged beer can and 12-pack."
Against all odds some of my colleagues are beginning to shift towards ABW. Mrs. Blueberry and Fantasia seem the most susceptible to his brand of dick waving. Just to try and throw him off guard I ask, "What kind of law do you practice?" "Property tax law" is his response. I decide to begin openly referring to him as "Perry Mason." What was most impressive was how he managed to fit both arrogance and sheepishness into his response. Slowly I bring them back over to reason but we end up going through several iterations before deciding that we have to listen to a replay of the testimony. about how the cop took a picture. You may be asking yourselves why we would need to hear such a simple piece of testimony over again, and I must tell you that I have absolutely no idea.
After listening to the testimony about how to take a polaroid picture again, ABW comes to a decision. "I'm convinced, he's guilty." My heart immediately pumps all of my blood into my brain and I have a series of small aneurysms. After a small amount of further cleanup and convincing, everyone comes back over to the guilty verdict and it is time to move on to assessing a fine.
12:40 (That is correct, it took us 1.5 hours to determine that he did have an open container in his car)
We begin discussing fines. We can choose any number between $1 and $500. I believe that $200 is about the normal fine for an open container violation. I suggest to the group $250 because it spanks him a little for forcing such a silly trial, but recognizes that in the class of open container violations his was fairly pedestrian. Keep in mind that all of the people in the room except me had at one point within the last hour or so considered him not guilty. Some within the last 15 minutes. All but one of them voted immediately for the maximum fine of $500. I asked them if they recognized that we were given a range for a reason and whether they recognized that a man with a car full of empty hard liquor bottles who was driving while pouring vodka in his hair would be issued for the same fine. They said yes, but they wanted to teach this guy a lesson. Having expended all my energy in the guilty / not guilty fiasco I had no patience for another fight. I washed my hands of the issue and said, "$500 it is!"
1:00
Back in the courtroom the guilty verdict seemed expected and well received by all but the defendant. The $500 fine drew looks of consternation from both the prosecutor and the judge and actually caused the defendant to sort of wince and double over. We were thanked and dismissed. I nodded and shared a joint smirk with the cop on the way out of the courtroom. The defendant offered congratulations to the prosecutor. As I walked down the hall I saw that ABW had cornered the prosecutor and was questioning him about jury selection. Going down the stairs I overheard him saying, "I'm surprised you impaneled me given that I am an attor---," as the door closed.
All in all this was a fantastic experience and I look forward to my next municipal court jury duty.
Posted by gvogel at 10:27 PM | Comments (7)