“The time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy”
~ Albus Dumbledore
I have been grappling with some moral issues as of late. This is not a new path for me, as I historically have chosen the least tread path in life. However, like all moral dilemmas, the issues tangle and weave themselves around all the other decisions you have made in the whole of your life, creating ever increasingly complex nuances and variations.
It is now time to tell a story that I have not fully told until now. Friends have heard bits and pieces, mostly as it was happening, but I have resisted writing down the whole of my experience. I think that it has taken me the past two years to fully process what I saw versus what I knew and my place in the drama that unfolded.
Righteousness is a concept that has always held a great deal of appeal to me. I don’t like bullies, and I have a fundamental faith that what goes around truly does come around. More than not liking bullies, I tended to be the person who DID something about the bully. My 8th grade basketball career was cut tragically short by this tendency. Apparently, the coach did not enjoy my pointing out her bullying techniques to the Administration, and teammates, and Superintendent.
In 11th grade, I was called into the principal’s office to discuss a “letter to the editor” that I had written to our local paper, criticizing the decision to place armed police in our rural Vermont school. A few months later, I was called in to discuss my statement to Elizabeth Dole who was speaking to our school assembly during one of her husbands’ runs for office. I simply pointed out that almost no one in the audience was old enough to vote, why was she here speaking to us?
I can’t imagine that they were sad to see me trot off to college.
In 2004, I received a jury duty letter. I was to appear at the appointed date and time and possibly be selected for jury duty. I had never been called before and was actually a little excited at the prospect of participating in the judicial system. Chances were slim, though, as I was one of a pool of about 500 people.
I arrived and sat down in the courtroom. I glanced around at my potential fellow jurors. We had some very special individuals in the crowd. The judge stood up and announced that this was a little different from other times we may have been called for jury duty. This was a first-degree murder trial. We were to each be individually interviewed by both the defendant and prosecutor. I signed up for the first round of interviews, as I needed to get back to work and didn’t want to have to take another day off.
I can only imagine what I looked like to both sides. I was nervous. I was excited. There were a number of odd questions. What TV shows did I watch? What types of books did I read? Where did I go to school? What did I do in my job? These questions morphed into more direct questions. Would I be upset by photos of a graphic and bloody nature? Would testimony regarding drug use be offensive to me?
Finally, would I be able to stand up to 11 other jurors in the event I felt that the defendant was either guilt or innocent? I didn’t hesitate. Yes, of course. The defense asked me to look at the defendant and repeat these words “I will do everything in my power to insure that you have a fair trail”. I did so. I smiled at the accused murderer as I repeated these words. “Thank you”, he mouthed to me.
The case itself was fairly mundane. Cocaine deal to Seller. Cocaine deal goes bad. Dealer wants his money. He is connected with some very bad dudes, who also want their money. Buyer doesn’t want to pay the dealer back, so buyer comes up with a scheme to kill the dealer and keep the coke. However, buyer doesn’t do the work himself, he sends his nephew out to take care of it. Nephew is in his early 20’s and doesn’t speak Spanish, so he brings an old neighborhood friend (whose mother is housing the Dealer) to convince Dealer that it is all on the up and up. In fact, the car being driven is registered to the neighborhood friend’s mom.
Nephew and friends drive with dealer to my state to pick up money that Nephew’s uncle owes – about $5,000. Nephew decides to tell the dealer to turn down a little dead end road close to an Aunt’s house. Dealer has no idea where he is. He has never been in this state before.
Dealer pulls over and begins to get out of car. He is shot twice. Once in the head, once in the throat. He dies. Nephew and Friend run the 10 minutes to Aunt’s house where they find someone to drive them back to their homes – across state borders.
Nephew is caught first and gives the Friend up as the shooter. Nephew is on parole and would go to jail forever. He cuts deal to give testimony about Friend.
The case itself is sad. These are 20 to 25 year olds. The Dealer has a six-year-old daughter, whose mother was 14 when she had her. They are young men who have grown up in very rough neighborhoods. They are all Black or Hispanic. They are no strangers to drugs, jail, police and death.
It wasn’t the case that affected me. It was the jurors.
America, if this is what goes on behind the closed doors of a jury, I suggest you all be very afraid. It started small. A comment here and there. Then one juror found out that my husband was black. That is when it came crashing down. She began to tell me that I had no right to be on this jury, that I had a “thing” for the defendant. I announced early on that my decision was made. I had heard the evidence and I could not find this young man guilty of first-degree murder. Choosing shitty friends? Living in a neighborhood where the only economic opportunity was drugs? Yes and Yes. Killing a man with no fingerprints, no forensic evidence, nothing except the word of someone who had much more to lose if he was charged with the crime? The word of someone who gained financially by keeping the drug profits in his family?
Sorry. Not me. Can’t do it. The jury split six to six. The days wore on. This woman badgered and yelled at the other jurors until one by one, they began to change their votes. At one junction she yelled, “A man is Dead – SOMEONE must be made to pay for this crime!” like she was Perry Mason. She would rail about “these people” bringing drugs into “our” neighborhood. Yep. Watch out for the Niggers and Spics, cause they’re a-comin with the drugs! Lock up your white ladies! We already got a race traitor here in the jury room! The black penis has already beguiled her and we all know that once you go black, you never go back!
It was amazing. Seven days I suffered through this. The Foreman and I were the final lone holdouts. There were offers of bargaining if we would change our votes. I would come home at night and cry. The temptation to change my vote to get away from these horrid people was nearly overwhelming.
It’s just not in my fundamental nature to turn away from the fight. I stood fast. The jury hung. They re-tried him in six months. That jury hung too.
The decision between what is right and what is easy is not always that dramatic. It is tempting to think that every choice is the final showdown between good and evil, but that isn’t how it all works. Recently, it has been quieter moments when I have seen things that were unacceptable to my internal code. That has caused my struggle. You’ll not be surprised to know that I came down on the side of what is right.
There will be ramifications if my role in the unfolding drama is discovered. That is less important to me than doing what’s right. I resist because it is in my DNA to do so. I speak for children. I face down the bullies.
