R: 10/2/02

Work Diary, 10/2/02

On Monday, I was called in for jury duty. In Denver County, you can't
just phone in; you must show up by 8:30, have your summons scanned as
if you're in the grocery store, and then you sit. Your number may or
may not be called. I estimated at least five hundred people sitting in
the jury assembly room: every possible race, most ethnicities, the
young and the decrepit. No one rolled in on a wheelchair, however,
which is fortunate - it's unlikely a wheelchair could have maneuvered
through such sardine-like conditions.

After much hustle and bustle, in which the people who'd unwisely sat on
the end of the chair aisles were forced to endure ass after ass as
people squeezed by them, the room settled down. We were then treated to
a video - played on televisions that surely came with the building back
in the 1930s - in which a lovely young woman thanks us all for being
there and explains our duties as "citizens." Now, anyone who's taken a
roster of liberal arts classes in college will understand that the word
"citizens," particularly when applied to a group of disgruntled,
impatient people, can result in some pretty nasty scenarios.
Fortunately, the video kept cutting in and out, causing those who were
watching to laugh. The rest of the mob was busy hiding between its
knees, the preferred position when surreptitiously making that
one?last?important?cell?phone?call.

My number came up and I joined a group of thirty fellow citizens in the
hallway, where the bailiff took attendance. Unfortunately, the
bailiff's voice was drowned out by the man behind me, still on his
phone and chatting away about the $457.00 lottery his wife had won.
Clearly he was concerned that the money be paid out soon; those cell
bills can get pretty pricey.

We proceeded to a surprisingly well-appointed courtroom: very regal,
with it's long, velvety drapes and copper-gilded frescoes. Even the
hardwood benches were polished. The judge arrived, we rose, he told us
to take a seat, and then he promptly informed us that this was the
nicest courtroom in the building because an episode of "Perry Mason"
had been filmed there.

Must television invade every aspect of our lives?

People are generally appalling until you get to know them, and even
then it's not a sure thing. Witness what I felt was the most disturbing
occurrence of the day, from the initial crush of humanity that morning
to the inconsideration of people whose only affirmation in life is a
cell phone:

Judges and attorneys routinely ask questions of potential jurors that,
depending on the answers they get, may disqualify the jurors. The
questions cover issues like citizenship, age, relationship to the
plaintiff or defendant - anything that doesn't fit the law or that
makes the juror biased. The judge gets to go first, naturally, and his
last question is typically: "Would your participation in this trial
cause you any undue hardship, either now or in the future, which will
affect your ability to be an impartial juror?" A fair enough question,
I think.

Four people - all women - raised their hands. The first ran her own
small business, and was understandably concerned about being absent for
any length of time. The second, a curator at the Denver Art Museum, had
three talks scheduled for this week; she was the key speaker in each of
them. The judge, however, dismissed these two jurors' issues, stating
they did not fit the definition of undue hardship. To their credit,
both women were noticeably disappointed but agreed with the judge's
decision.

The third woman told the judge that she was a nursing mother; her child
was eleven months old and currently in the care of its father, a
minister. The fourth woman stated she was five months pregnant, had a
toddler at home, and she refused to leave her child with strangers at a
daycare facility. Both these women were college-educated; neither
worked outside the home.

Simply put, their "undue hardship" was their motherhood.

If I'm not a feminist, neither is Gloria Steinem. I'm also a realist
who is the first to applaud a parent's decision to stay home and raise
a baby, whether it's the mother or father. But despite the fact that
many states in the US did not even allow women to serve on juries until
well into the 1920s, these two college-educated mothers took it upon
themselves to affirm the very arguments that anti-suffragettes used in
the first place. And, they did it without even blinking, which may have
been the most disturbing part of all.

Their comments raised more eyebrows than the lost old man who'd
stumbled into the courtroom earlier and had to be escorted out by the
bailiff. The judge said he wasn't aware that motherhood was an undue
hardship; another female juror calmly shook her head, barely hiding her
disgust. For my part, I sat with my head in my hands lest someone catch
the look of surprise on my face and mistake it for eagerness (i.e.,
this isn't about patriotism).

Perhaps I'm overreacting. Perhaps, in their hearts, these women felt
they had a true excuse for not serving. Wouldn't that make it worse,
though - the complete ignorance of historical precedents, of why their
being "called to duty" is more worthwhile than a waste of time?

At the very least, the reactions in the courtroom made it clear that
the two mothers did not represent women at large, for which I am
strangely grateful. While I can only speak for my own community, I am
hard pressed to find much difference between the men and women around
me (short of the physical, of course). They are equally nice, mean,
sweet, awful, loving, bitter - supply your own adjective. Subsequently,
I believe the mommy contingent reflected badly on all of us in the
courtroom, leaving us all embarrassed and just a bit ashamed.

Incidentally, one of the mothers was chosen to serve. When her name was
called, she removed the cell phone from her purse and?