Just finished three pretty intense days of jury service. My only previous one was a state trial in 1994, ending in acquittal. This was federal, ending in three guilty verdicts.
One passage from the judge’s written charge to the jury stays in my mind:
Each juror is entitled to his or her opinion, but you are required to exchange views with your fellow jurors. This is the very essence of jury deliberation. It is your duty to discuss the evidence. If you have a point of view and after reasoning with other jurors it appears that your own judgment is open to question, then of course you should not hesitate in yielding your original point of view if you are convinced that the opposite point of view is really one that satisfies your judgment and conscience. You are not to give up a point of view, however, that you conscientiously believe in simply because you are outnumbered or outweighed.
An excellent description of the democratic temperament, I’d say. The jury system is as flawed as human beings and all their institutions are flawed. But there’s an awful lot to be said for this appeal to reason and intelligence in the public square. If more people took jury service seriously, our society would improve.
Oh, and I also wholeheartedly approve of the total ban on juror cellphones. Nothing kills public-spiritedness faster than a fucking cellphone.
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