Sitting in Judgment
-- The Dallas Morning News Viewpoints page, October 7, 2001:
Dear John S.:
My name probably is not familiar to you, but my face may be.
I was one of the 12 members of the jury that decided your
criminal case almost two weeks ago.
That first morning we gathered, we were 12 strangers sitting at a
rectangular table in the small jury room behind the courtroom. We
were ten women and two men, young and middle-aged, employed and
self-employed and unemployed, black and white, married and single,
parents and grandparents and young adults. We had little in common
except geography and our status as registered voters.
For two days, we heard testimony and arguments about the crime you
had been indicted for. Slowly, a story began to take shape. Homeless
and broke, you had wandered into a bank in a building next to the
University of Texas campus last February. You gave the teller a note
asking for ten $100 bills. That note was entered into evidence, then
passed from juror to juror. It was carefully written and literate;
it was even apologetically polite, until its ending that advised the
teller to cooperate so “no one will get hurt.”
At best, you were a halfhearted, hapless felon. You left the building
with the money, but you were captured within an hour. Waiving your
right to legal representation, you confessed to two police officers
later that afternoon.
Since that day, you had been in jail, and you looked healthier and
calmer than your arrest photographs. You had been off drugs for
several months, and you had had regular meals and a place to sleep.
But who were you, really? Individually and collectively, we tried
to put together the few pieces we had. In the courtroom, you were
mild-mannered and self-effacing, and you said you were sorry for
your mistakes. You listened intently and did not avoid our gaze. But
what did that mean? Outside the courtroom, we knew, you were
probably very different.
We knew you had a drug problem (crack, most recently), and you
didn’t have a job. We guessed you were estranged from your father,
a kind-faced man who had survived bladder cancer, and your sister,
who – in your absence – tried to help your aging parents with their
farm in Central Texas; even so, they came to the trial to testify
in your behalf. We knew you had previous misdemeanors over the past
decade, most centering on drugs. But, to our knowledge, you didn’t
have a history of violence. Even robbing a bank, you hadn’t carried
a weapon.
So what were we to do with you? The second day, after we had
already found you guilty of robbery, we went back to the jury room
to decide your sentence. Our choices ranged from two to twenty years.
By then, the 12 of us knew each other better. We knew about families
and work, schooling and cooking preferences, bits and pieces of each
other’s lives – the same way we knew about bits and pieces of yours.
It took us almost three hours to return with a verdict of four years,
which was exactly what your attorney had asked us for. These four
years were a painful compromise for virtually every one of us.
By then, we, the jury, knew each other much better. In at least a
few instances, we didn’t like each other nearly as well. But that
wasn’t our charge, was it?
Here is what I can tell you. For two days, 12 strangers sat together,
and at least 11 of us watched every move in the courtroom and listened
to every word. We tried to understand you. We argued passionately
about what would be best for you, what might jolt you into turning
your life around – but still would protect the society we all lived
in. More or less prison time? Was there a chance of rehabilitation –
drug or personal – in prison? None of us thought so. But prison might
bring structure to your life and a stark confrontation with the
seriousness of the mistakes you had made.
Individually, we each had our own imperfections, experiences and talents.
Together, I want to think, we were something more than that. As a
first-time juror, I was moved by the whole brilliant, creaky, illogical,
infuriating – and occasionally majestic – system I became a part of
for those two days.
At the end, we had a unanimous verdict, but feelings were raw. We left
the courtroom, going our separate ways.
In some things, I believe I can speak for those of us who sat in
judgment of you: We took your life and our role in it seriously. Now it’s
your turn to take responsibility for your own life. Can you do that, now,
finally? None of us knows -- but we wish you well.