My Civic Duty

So this past week I did my civic duty: Jury duty.

And to be quite honest, after it was all over and done, I felt like I had just walked straight into the middle of the book To Kill a Mockingbird.

This is how it went down:

I arrived at the city hall here in Keene at 5:55 p.m. Monday evening. A large crowd had gathered on the lawn in front of city hall so I knew I was in the right place. Earlier, I had asked people if Keene actually had a court, and especially a court that required jurors from time to time. Nobody had ever heard of such a thing...clearly they were all misinformed.

I hung there on the lawn with several other people from Keene for the next hour. Occasionally a girl ran out to tell us not to be discouraged--we would be called in soon enough. It was 94 degrees, and most of us were standing there in the heat without water. But...you know--no worries.

I noticed that one of the men was elderly and struggling to stay upright and so eventually I knocked on the door to see if I could get him a chair. I could see lots of people in the foyer of the building--just hanging there in the air conditioning, chatting it up and such. They looked at the door, talked quietly amongst themselves and then looked at the door again: should we answer it? should we not??

I knocked again.

Finally they took a chance that I wasn't a cold blooded killer and barely opened the door enough to just see my face through the crack: Can I help you?

"Umm...yeah--there's an elderly gentleman out here who needs a chair??"

And there are 50 of us that need some water maybe?

Anyway, they quickly obliged my request for a chair and as I offered it to the gentleman, he shouted, "Hallelujah" to the rooftops.

No. He really did.

And then we all waited some more.

Finally they called out 12 names...and I was one of them. And so they took us back to this little room in the back where we could see the judge, and an attorney, and an older man who was the defendant. The attorney explained that we had been summoned as jurors for the defendant who was contesting a traffic ticket. It was our job to determine whether he was guilty.

And then we were dismissed to wait again while they decided which 6 of us 12 would serve on the jury.

And so, we all shuffled out through a narrow hall and into a tiny waiting room that held a total of 4 chairs, where we huddled together and waited yet again...

And lucky me. I was one of the six.

So, back to the tiny courtroom I went. The defendant was probably in his late 60's, maybe even early 70's, and he was from the Good Ole Boys Club. You know...he had on his boots, his hat, his button down shirt, and his blue jeans.

The policeman was there as well.

And the video that showed the actual stop.

And so, the policeman told his story. It seemed like a basic traffic stop--nothing interesting nor exciting.

And then the defendant had his turn.

He began to tell his story, to attempt to find holes in the policeman's story, to prove all kinds of things that made me cock my head a bit...

He rearranged the room to show where certain cars were, where the policeman was ... (even though we had already seen the video)...

And then he questioned the policeman, and threw in a few accusations...

And finally, the attorney had enough, stood up, and shouted in frustration, "I. Declare. A. Mistrial!!"

He said it a few times, motioned with his hands for us to leave, apologized for wasting our time...and then shooed us out the door.

We dutifully left.

Stunned.

When we got back outside where we originally started from, I looked at one of the other jurors who had the privilege of serving with me, and said, "What was that all about??"

She just laughed and shook her head.

And then the defendant came out, his chest puffed out like he had just won the world championship, and he declared, "See? I was winning! That's why it was declared a mistrial! Because I was winning and they won't let me win!" He laughed uproariously while the girl hanging on his arm smiled up at him proudly.

He looked directly at me and said, "Don't you think I would have won?"

And I just stood there.

And then I didn't. I quickly turned around, headed to my car, and drove home.

I might have looked in my rear view mirror a couple of times to make sure he wasn't following me.

And I might have checked my phone to make sure that I wasn't In a time warp and that it was, in fact, 2016.

Texas.

Who knew?