Poetic Justice

By Keith Boykin, in pop culture
Tuesday, August 5 2003, 10:03AM

After two postponements, I finally served my jury duty yesterday. I served on a one-day misdemeanor criminal trial. What began as a confusing and hilarious day in the court house ended with a long wet walk home.

THE DAY

Just after midnight on Monday morning, I was preparing for bed when I decided to check out my calendar on Microsoft Outlook. To my surprise, I realized I had jury duty Monday at 8:30 a.m. I was not prepared.

I thought about postponing my service, but I knew I had to do it this time. I had already put off a jury summons in May and another in February because of schedule conflicts. This time I had no conflict except my unwillingness to get up so early in the morning.

Unable to put off my daily website update until I woke up, I stayed up till 3 in the morning writing my daily entry and then set my alarm clock for 7 and hit the bed. I know I'm spoiled but I'm not used to getting up at 7. As a writer, I love the freedom of going to bed when I want and waking up when I want. Usually I go to bed around 1 and wake up around 9. I like to get 8 hours of sleep. That night I got 5.

The alarm rang at 7. I turned the dial to 7:30 and went back to sleep. At 7:30, I turned it to 7:45. At 7:45, I hit the snooze button. And 7:51, I was forced to get up. I had just 39 minutes to shower, shave, dress, pack my things for the day, walk 6 blocks to the subway station, and take a 30 minute subway ride downtown. For some reason, I never really thought about the time involved. I just assumed if I moved quickly I might make it. That would be impossible.

On my way down the street, I fingered through my bag to find the jury summons. It was not there. I didn't have to time to go back home and search for it, so I decided to wing it by remembering where I had gone in May when I postponed.

The 2 train ran efficiently down to Chambers Street, where I got off and walked three blocks to the jury building I remembered. An officer at the door stopped me and told me that they don't assemble jurors there during the summer. He redirected me to 60 Centre Street, four blocks over. I arrived at the courthouse 25 minutes late, sat down with hundreds of others in the jury room, sat through a painfully long series of videos (one by Dianne Sawyer) about the jury process, and then listened to a lengthy speech by one of the clerks.

At 9:30, he began collecting the jury summons notices that had been mailed out. I told him I didn't have one, and he sent me to the first floor to get a duplicate. On my way out the door, I ran into Derrick Bell, one of my law professors from Harvard, who is now teaching at NYU. We chatted for a moment and then I apologized for running off.

I waited for 10 minutes to get my duplicate summons, only to discover that I was in the wrong court building. I had been assigned to a criminal court jury service at 100 Centre Street, so I took my new summons and raced up the street to report for duty, almost two hours late.

The clerk kindly took my summons and let me enter the room. I sat around reading the wedding and engagement section of the Sunday New York Times until my name was called for a jury.

THE TRIAL

Two female police officers escorted 20 of us to a court room on the fourth floor, where we sat through an hour of voir dire (questioning the potential jurors). The judge asked us lots of questions about our ability to serve impartially and interrogated each of us about our backgrounds, careers, education and interests. She asked us where we went to school, but curiously she did not ask the question to the only other black man sitting on the panel. I think she assumed from his background that he did not go to school.

I was picked for the 8-member jury panel along with an Asian man who works as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, an older white man who argued cases in military tribunals years ago, two white women with dark hair, and four other male jurors who made no impression on me.

I know it's bad to say this, but from that moment on, it took all my energy not to laugh in the court room. The case, the judge, the lawyers, and the parties involved had to be stolen from "Judge Judy" or the "People's Court."

The pea-green prosecuting attorney straight out of law school looked flustered from the beginning. When the judge told him to hurry up with his line of questions, he simply sat down instead of continuing. Dressed in a conservative gray suit, crisp white shirt, and an American flag lapel pin, he epitomized the straight-laced, clean-shaven white government lawyer.

For his part, the defense attorney apparently woke up that morning in 1978. His curly uncombed hair, thick mustache, unbuttoned shirt and tie all contributed to his disheveled appearance.

Judge Pickholz, a middle-aged white woman with short hair, thick eyebrows and glasses, did not appear to be impressed by either attorney.

The case involved two young Latina women, each of whom had a baby with the same father. The two women were once friends but now appear to be enemies. On January 25, the defendant ran into the victim at a late-night baby shower in the Lower East Side. Words were exchanged, spit flew, hair was pulled, and the police came.

The defendant was charged with intentionally violating a restraining order against her and with attempted assault. The prosecutor's case was so poorly put together that I still don't understand what he was trying to prove. He called three witnesses -- the victim, the victim's friend, and a police officer who did not see the events take place and contradicted the testimony of the victim.

The prosecution rested after an hour or so. The defense attorney then called the defendant, who had to be the most unsympathetic defendant imaginable. She sat in her chair through most of the trial rolling her eyes at the testimony of the prosecutor's witnesses. When that didn't work, she put her head down on the table like a bored school kid.

The judge was so visibly disappointed by the case that she shook her head in dismay and buried it in her hands for two or three minutes during the trial. She repeatedly chastised the attorneys to get to the point and rolled her eyes like a frustrated mother forced to discipline her children again and again. "Speak up," she kept yelling at the lawyers. "Don't waste your time on this," she said to each of them.

At one point, the prosecutor asked the victim how she was hit. Although the victim did not appear to understand the question, the defendant clearly did. Sitting on the other side of the courtroom completely unprovoked, the defendant menacingly raised her dukes and shuffled around like Muhammad Ali to demonstrate how she beat up the victim.

It took all my energy not to bust out laughing at that point, but fortunately the judge intervened with the defendant. "Put your hands down," she said. "That's not necessary."

By 4 o'clock both sides were wrapping up their closing arguments and I was thinking about a quick "not guilty" verdict and getting home. It was clear the defendant had hit the victim but the prosecutor never introduced any credible evidence to show that she did so intentionally.

At the end of the trial, I found out I was one of two alternates, and we were both dismissed. We laughed about the case in the elevator and both agreed on our "not guilty" votes, but neither one of us wanted to stick around to find out the verdict.

THE DAY ENDS

Outside the court house, a torrential downpour flooded lower Manhattan. With an umbrella and a jacket, I marched onto the sidewalk and walked 12 blocks to the nearest subway I could find that would take me home.

It seemed like a good move at first, but the streets were impassable. Canal Street was almost totally flooded, and people on the side streets that feed into it were knee deep in water. Meanwhile, the Asian merchants at the kitschy tourist shops in Chinatown shoveled water away from their stores with brooms, and a photographer laughed as she filmed stranded pedestrians wading through unexpected pools of water.

Even with an umbrella, my pants were completely soaked from foot to waist by the time I reached the E train. I could feel the water in my underwear as I sat down on the bench in the train. At 42nd Street, I transferred to the 2 train only a tad bit drier than before.

By 72nd Street, the train had stopped in its tracks. After a 30 minute delay at the station, an announcement over the P.A. system told the commuters that the trains were out of service because of a flood at 79th Street. I got off, walked 24 blocks in the post-rain humidity to 96th Street, and got on another train to take me home.

Finally at home, I threw my soggy pants on the hard wood floor, stripped off my shirt and relaxed. All in the name of public service.

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