A few weeks ago I received a summons for jury duty.
“No sweat,” I said to myself, noting that the box marked “standby” was checked. I’ve gotten a half dozen or so jury summons (summonses? summonsii?) in the past ten years, and I’ve been a standby for all of them. In each case I’ve been dismissed by phone without even having to go downtown. Piece of cake.
So it was to my great chagrin and extreme dismay that, two weeks later, I found myself sitting in a courtroom in a skinny little pool of thirty potential jurors waiting to be interviewed by the Fulton County assistant prosecutor and public defender for a capital-freaking-murder trial that was expected to last at least a week. (This is why my old journalism school professor told me that when we “assume” it makes an “ass” out of “u” and “me.” In this case, mostly “me”…)
On a break, before the final jury was picked, I texted a number of friends and family to tell them of my predicament.
“Just lie!” one of my friends instructed me. “Just tell the judge you think he’s guilty now – don’t even need to have a trial!”
“Yeah, right,” I thought to myself. “Easy for you to say behind your computer. You come stand down here and look a superior court judge and D.A. in the eye and tell them a big, fat, obvious lie.” No, thank you.
Nonetheless, I most definitely did not want to be on the jury, particularly because the defendant’s extended family took up the entire back row of the courtroom and the court clerk kept calling: “Mr. Calhoun? MR. JACK CAL-HOUN???” Like it’s hard to find out where someone lives these days.
So I resolved when they interviewed me to be truthful and yet to try to project an air of being a really bad choice for the jury – however one does that. After mulling it over, I decided to go for “intense.” Make both sides wonder if maybe they didn’t know me as well as they thought, like maybe I might be the kind of wildcard that would do the opposite of what they were expecting in the jury chamber. I lowered my forehead as much as I could and tried to look hard at everyone without actually scowling or appearing threatening. It was a delicate balance.
Only, the very first question knocked me out of my game. Or, more specifically, the reaction to my answer.
“Mr. Calhoun, what do you do for a living?” asked Mr. Assistant D.A.
“I am an investment advisor,” I said.
And then the most shocking thing happened. The courtroom spontaneously laughed. Laughed!
And it wasn’t a laugh like you might hear if someone is saying “Ha ha, that’s neat!” It was the kind of laugh you hear when someone tells you a story about something humiliating that happened to them and you are just so glad you aren’t them. Like “Ha ha! That sucks for you!”
Even the defendant chuckled – and he was facing the electric chair!
Now I felt like I was on trial. “No, it’s not like that!” I wanted to tell them. “I’m one of the good guys. We actually help people!”
But it wasn’t exactly like I had the floor, being a murder trial and all, and it seemed a bad time to try to explain the finer nuances between being a product-pushing stock broker and a conflict-free, fee-only investment advisor.
The D.A. looked at me with a modicum of compassion. “Been a tough six months, huh?” he said. Rather than argue with him at this point I just accepted my fate and played the hand I’d been dealt.
“It’s been like working for the Suicide Prevention Hotline,” I said. At least this time I got a laugh on purpose.
Then the Public Defender had his turn querying me. “Mr. Calhoun, you answered ‘yes’ to a lot of our questions, didn’t you?” he said.
This was true. I tried to think of any arcane example I could come up with to every single question they put to the jury pool in the first round of questioning, and I’m pretty sure I came in first place. I figured the more I answered “Yes” to questions like, “Was your grandmother ever held up in front of her own home by a shotgun-wielding thug,” (which is, by the way, true), the higher your likelihood of alarming one side or the other.
“Do you think you can put aside these experiences and judge the defendant fairly, impartially and without prejudice?” he asked.
Dang. The moment of truth. I was hoping he would take one look at all my “yes” answers and tell me to have a nice day, but it wasn’t going to happen. I looked at the judge, who sort of had one eyebrow raised as if to say, “Don’t be the four thousandth idiot who’s come through my courtroom and said ‘no.’ You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes I can.”
I thought my fate was sealed, but when they impaneled the final jury I was delighted that I did not hear my name after all. Only I don’t think it was because of any great strategy on my part.
I think they just felt sorry for me.
