THE FARCE OF A NYC GRAND JURY

My Grand Jury service finished, it is inevitable, if not right, that I now draw definitive inferences about the way the system works. I will tell my students that it is a mass of contradictions and a feast of ironies. It's a volley between abomination and blessing. I'd rather not rely on it, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Being a conscripted jurist is a duty as daunting as watching a kindergarten class on a field trip to a pumpkin farm. But not being a lawyer who could volunteer his services to a political club in exchange for an eventual payoff of a judgeship,( as a favor from the governor to a loyal club politician), this is as close as I can get to being called "your honor."

Mental deficiency is no ground for exclusion from jury duty, nor is anything else. We twenty-three citizens were convened to impersonate a cross section of our often morbidly diverse society. We were highly qualified by virtue of random selection from drivers licenses and willingness of our employers to save the court system money by paying us full salary for the duration of our term. Who better to determine "reasonable cause to believe" and "legally sufficient evidence."

Unless my experience was a fluke, the system works to a decent, now and then inspiring degree, in spite of itself. The odds of justice prevailing are more favorable than the calling of unloaded dice, which is more than can be said of most nations. After a month, we Grand Jurors felt more imbedded than impaneled. We saw human tragedies and sometimes came to pity those who caused them, even as we dispatched them to face the consequences. We also observed prosecutions that reflected more malice than vigor.

Arson to bail jumping, murder to insurance fraud, kidnaping and car jacking to robbery, burglary and sex abuse, the docket was in a heavy bleed for four weeks. Each case was presented by an assistant district attorney, nearly all of whom were female thirty-somethings. Their styles varied. Some were aloof; others acted like party animals, no doubt to charm jurors. They mostly kept to a rigid line of interrogation, which we soon realized was scripted and memorized. They verbally "painted by numbers" by filling in testimony from fastidiously prepped and briefed witnesses. If I ever hear "Did there come a time..." again, I will embrace Islamic law.

District attorneys often must think fast to get a witness back on track after he has contradicted or strayed from his original testimony. Some are virtuosos at this, their agility driven by ravenousness for indictment. Others get flustered and cannot ad-lib. Like matinee understudies, some of these legal thespians are better at improvisation than others.
"The People against..." This standard phrase implies that we jurors, the exclusive judges of the evidence, are society's conscience. Is there such a thing anymore? It is a sacred trust, and when the honor system is in effect, somewhat shaky too.

Comic relief peeks through gravity. When voting on whether to hand up an indictment or dismiss felony charges, we heard a fellow juror snoring. One of us raised his slumbering hand and he thus tipped the balance. In a different case we were being shown autopsy photos when a district attorney's cell phone went off to a mambo motif.

Typically, cases are continued more than a week after testimony was heard by the grand jury. During that time, dozens of unrelated cases may have been heard in their entirety or drips and drabs. The district attorney always asks cursorily and rhetorically whether the jury has a sufficient recollection of the facts of the old case, but juries tend to automatically answer in the affirmative, even with a person's freedom at stake.

Defense attorneys are forbidden from addressing the grand jury. The district attorney is the orchestrator of the presentation, as well as the jury's legal advisor. After a witness has testified and the district attorney concluded her delivery, grand jury members can ask their own questions of the witness. The juror must whisper it privately to the district attorney out of earshot of all others except the stenographer. Often the district attorney will not permit it because it inadmissible on legal grounds. But even when this is not the case, she may so skewer by paraphrase, that the intended meaning of the original question is sacrificed to suit the interested party of the prosecution.

Often there is dramatic and enlightening testimony that the jury is instructed to disregard as "hearsay", even if its consideration would reverse the jury's finding. Fortunately, it is not realistic to expect people to unhear what they have heard.

Despite the district attorney's pointed, poised, and intermittently slick ways, we have seen them flustered and even outsmarted by some dysfunctional and ignorant street kid who might have nothing but the stubborn truth on his side. Police officers, in some cases, would not bear up as well, were it not for the district attorney walking them through the testimony.

Before the Grand Jury votes on whether the evidence merits a trial, it hears the applicable standards of law speed-read by the district attorney. Most of the time we knew which charges, which counts, and which defendants were which.
If the justice system has a "wonder of wonders" it is the court reporter. Not only does she render into code instantly every syllable of rapid speech, but again and again she acts like a de facto advisor to district attorneys forgetful of routine procedures.

Ms. Blind Justice, upholding the scales of justice, might sometimes as well be wearing a Halloween mask for the treatment that guilt and innocence get in our riddled system. But to a majestic extent, it is viable. None of us voted along racial, political, economic, or other prejudicial lines. Plain folks really do rise to a supreme bar of responsibility. They are exalted into expertise as by the solemn commission of a religious mystery. It works. I cannot wait to tell my students about the "way" of the American Way.

(From here)



(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today)