“Professor or lawyer?” a tall woman in a suit asked me, as she indicated that she would be joining me in my row.
I looked up from the binder of paper I was editing, a draft of my next novel, to see a tall, well-dressed woman in a suit.
“Neither. Teacher… and author,” I said, still adjusting to claiming this as part of my identity.
I stood up to let her slide by me and take a seat. She left an empty seat between the two of us, enough space for a little privacy but close enough so that we could have some pleasant conversation.
“I’m a paralegal, so they probably won’t pick me. Looks like almost everyone else is a phone zombie, but not you,” she said, pointing to my binder.
I looked around the large, rectangular room with auditorium seating facing a screen in the front. Narrow vertical windows provided some natural light and peaceful blue sky. I thought I’d be able to see more buildings, but the sky was nice, peaceful even. I started counting and got up to about seventy other jurors. If they were only picking twelve out of seventy, what are the odds I’ll be picked?
“How many cases do you think they are looking for jurors for?” Since she worked in law, I figured she might have more experience here than me.
“Yes, that’s how it works now. It didn’t used to be that way, but this is more efficient.”
As jurors, we’d all gone through the same rigamarole that morning, parking in the juror lot, going through strict security, waiting in a lobby to be taken in the elevator, six or seven at a time, to the fourth floor, the jury’s waiting space. There, we checked in. I didn’t need the summons they sent me or even my ID. My name sufficed. Perhaps through Real ID my picture popped up and I looked close enough? Perhaps no one would randomly show up for jury duty and give the right name of their own volition?
While we were waiting in line to check in, there was some chatter among jurors, if it was someone’s first time, what happened when they called the hotline the night before–it just rang, or it was busy or it took them an hour to get through, if they had deferred or not.
But once we were in the waiting room, she was right. Almost everyone immediately plugged into their phones, bodies hunched, lost in a digital world a few square inches in size.
How unlike the last time I had jury duty. How long ago was that? I was still in New York City. Could it have been fifteen years ago? I don’t think anyone had a phone out back then. Yes, smart phones had been invented, but they didn’t have wireless or WiFi access everywhere, and definitely not in a courthouse. Now, WiFi was everywhere. Even in subways. For so many years, you had to rely on the maps in the subway cars for directions, and now, you could just look at your phone. The last time I had jury duty, back in New York City, back in my twenties, I’d taken a book and ended up sitting beside a Rockette. We spent most of the day just talking.
They called us to attention, and most of the others put their phones away. The woman in charge spent a good amount of time thanking us, telling us how important what we were doing was, and how they appreciated our making the sacrifice–getting babysitters, asking off work, making arrangements to be there.
“Our system of justice exists for everyone, and in order to preserve this system, we rely on people like you.Your presence and participation is vital to our system of justice. We try more cases in front of a jury in the United States than any other country in the world.” She told us to, “Listen carefully, keep an open mind, avoid biases, and use common sense.”
Some of the things she said echoed episodes of Dragnet and other cop shows or movies that I had seen. How the defendant was presumed innocent unless proven otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt, how the state must prove guilt and how the defendant didn’t have to prove anything at all. And how the defendant had the right to remain silent and that was not an indication of guilt or innocence, just a right that the defendant had.
Then we watched a movie about implicit bias. I’d always thought that it was something negative, subconsciously prejudging people based on a few traits or observations. The movie had a different take. It called them ‘mental shortcuts’ that were sometimes helpful in navigating the world and making efficient decisions, but that could have dangerous consequences in a courtroom. It said, “Awareness is fairness. Would you make the same decision if the person was of another gender, race, or age?”
When the woman asked me if I was a professor or lawyer, she was just using a mental shortcut to classify me, to find someone to sit near. Not inherently negative, just efficient decision making on her part in a new situation.
