About six years ago I had my one and only contact with the jury system. At that time I wrote the piece below, but never posted it. I came across it today while cleaning up my email. I think it shows the challenges that minorities face in the American legal system. Maybe it's different these days, but somehow, I doubt it.
I was recently called to jury duty in downtown Minneapolis at the Hennepin County District Court building. A panel of 24 prospective jurors, all of us white and middle-aged, was summoned to a courtroom. As we entered the prosecutor, the defense attorney and the defendant, an overweight young black man, rose.
The judge explained the charges (fifth-degree possession of meth) and began to ask the panel a number of questions: did we know the defendant, the lawyers, the witnesses in the case? Did we know people employed in law enforcement or the legal profession? Had we been victims of crime? Did we have experience with the justice system as defendants?
Two people were excused from service because they said they would give more credence to law enforcement personnel than other witnesses. A third was excused because he felt he had been incorrectly stopped in one of two DWI incidents.
The judge then asked us to return the next day, Thursday, reminding us not to talk about the case. We returned and were asked to wait in the hall outside the courtroom. After a few hours we were brought in and the attorneys began to ask the jurors questions in order, one by one. After 20 minutes and three jurors we finished for the day. The judge asked us to return the following Monday at 1:30.
Monday we returned to wait in the hallway for a few hours. We watched the lawyers, the defendant, police officers and other people enter and leave the courtroom. We didn't know what the delay was. Despite the admonitions of the judge, people began to talk about the case. People wondered if fifth-degree meth possession was a felony. They wondered why the defendant didn't just plead guilty to such a minor charge. They commented on the way the defendant dressed (in "pedal pushers"), and how he sauntered into the courtroom "like King Tut."
People complained about the delay, about missing work, about weekend plans (which hadn't been interfered with), about being forced into a third week of jury duty. They talked of other things: illnesses, books, church, family, the nastiness of politics, and whether the woman talking to a man in an office across the atrium was a parole officer. One man talked about hitchhiking in college and helping two girls reconnect the odometer cable they had disconnected to hide how far they had driven. Others talked about the drunken driving escapades of their youth, when kind-hearted cops just told them to get home safely. And about how that sort of thing doesn't happen any more.
At the end of the day the judge called us in. He apologized for the delay and asked us to return Tuesday at 9:30.
The next day we all knew what to expect: more waiting. I sat at the far end of the hall, next to the rumbling elevators. I couldn't hear the conversations taking place near the courtroom entrance.
After a couple of hours we were brought into the courtroom. The lawyers and defendant were absent -- they had made a deal. The judge again apologized for all the waiting and explained the delay: the defense had raised questions about the methodology used by the county to select jurors.
The judge had to take testimony from the Jury Office regarding how jurors are selected. Members of the jury pool for a specific case are selected at random from the jurors in the assembly room by a computer program, and then assigned juror numbers in random (non-alphabetic) order. Minorities, he was told, comprise 14% of the county's population. The juror selection system tries to achieve a 12.5% minority population. That's one person out of eight. We should have had three minority members on a 24-person panel. The defense wanted to know why we didn't.
The judge had to investigate where Hennepin County gets the names of the jurors. He said the Jury Office told him they came from voting records, drivers licenses and the Minnesota identification card system (for those who don't drive). From my one quarter of college statistics I compute that probability, based on the target 12.5% minority figure and 24 prospective jurors, at 4%.
In the end the judge ruled that the county's system was reasonable, and the trial would have to proceed with the jury pool on hand. And so the defendant decided to plead guilty. The judge explained other circumstances in the case (a felony warrant in another county and violation of parole) that figured into the defendant's decision.
The judge (who was Asian) thanked us and let us go.
We returned to the jury assembly room, where we were released from further service. As I left I scanned the potential jurors. I saw one black woman in the entire room of perhaps 100 people. Yet throughout my entire experience there I saw many people of color in the courthouse: judges, lawyers, guards, janitors, clerks, customers, passers-by on the street. There was no shortage of minorities in downtown Minneapolis.
Based on what the judge said, I don't think this particular defendant received unequal treatment. But I have to ask: how many defendants, faced with a jury packed with impatient, judgmental white faces, decide it's easier to just plead guilty? How many cases that go to trial have jurors who are mad about missing several days' pay? How many of these jurors vote out of spite to convict a defendant that they think should have just pleaded guilty to a silly misdemeanor drug charge instead of wasting everyone's time?
These aren't unfounded concerns. In his explanation the judge acknowledged the problem -- the term for it is "jury nullification."
My conclusion is that the jury selection system in Hennepin County,.though well-intentioned, isn't really working. To start off, the source for potential jurors isn't really very good: registered voters do not represent the general citizenry. Voters are overwhelmingly white and middle-aged or elderly. The drivers license and ID card rolls will similarly skew the jury pool, though not as much.
To be a juror you must be a US citizen, 18 or older, a resident of the county, physically able to serve, not on parole for a felony, and able to communicate in English. Potential jurors answer a questionnaire that asks about race, income, level of education, marital status, etc. All this is fine and good, but it's obviously not working.
The judge didn't go into how many people simply neglect to return the jury questionnaire. Perhaps minorities and younger people simply don't respond because they can't afford the time. You only get paid a $20 per diem and 27 cents a mile for travel. That just ain't gonna pay the bills.
If the population apparently underrepresented in the jury pool has legitimate reasons for not serving, something should be done to make it possible for them to participate.
It can't be stressed how important it is to have all kinds of people on juries, which is supposed to be comprised of your peers.
Throughout this experience the most astonishing thing to me was that five of the 24 prospective jurors had convictions on DWI charges. That is, more than 20% of these fine, upstanding white middle-aged citizens called to jury duty had broken the law and had driven drunk. Which in my book is far more serious than the fifth-degree meth possession the defendant pleaded guilty to. And it makes me wonder why the hell we're wasting all that jail space -- and money -- on people who've committed trivial drug crimes.
In a way this is strangely comforting. Apparently the only real difference between middle-aged white America and young black America is their choice of drug.
