I dreaded jury duty. Then I became a juror

With the prosecutor and defense attorney standing by me, Juror 7, at the bench, the judge questioned my impartiality if I were selected for the pending trial. Ten years ago, I was the victim of a crime. A thief had opened our unlocked Subaru’s door in a Starbucks lot, snatched my backpack and driven off in their own car. Might that bias me against the defendant?

No, I answered. The incident happened shortly after I had my cancerous prostate removed; the only loot the thieves got were post-op Depends.

The judge and attorneys chuckled, but I wasn’t laughed out of court. I joined a six-person jury that spent two June days in Massachusetts’s 3rd District Court of Middlesex, considering the fate of a man charged with driving under the influence. After we issued a verdict, the judge thanked us and asked that we spread the word if we’d found our service rewarding.

I hereby honor that request, even though I dreaded that service. I hope my testimony here is balm for fellow Bay Staters who report for duty — almost 183,000 last year — many of whom share my angst. (On the annoyance scale, Americans lump jury duty with visits to a department of motor vehicles and paying for return shipping.)

My late father and uncle, judges both, would surely sustain objections to my initial resistance. My case was no Karen Read-type life and time suck; its two day duration was the norm at the Medford courthouse. Only three witnesses testified — the two arresting state troopers and the accused. The only other evidence presented was the officers’ body-cam video of the arrest and booking.

On the annoyance scale, Americans lump jury duty with visits to a department of motor vehicles and paying for return shipping.

The proceedings reinforced what we’d been told before our empanelment: Juries are essential and powerful in the wheel of justice. The courtroom remained standing as we entered the jury box. When we were sent to deliberate, the judge emphasized that only our opinions, common sense and life experience, not hers or anyone else’s, mattered. The court officers who guided us back and forth were unfailingly polite and helpful.

At least some with legal degrees want to abolish juries in favor of trial by judges. They cite countries that have gone that route, some democratic (Germany), some more tentatively so (Singapore), and deem lay jurors prone to bias and ignorance. But if ignorance is your concern, read Alexis de Tocqueville. The Frenchman, whose “Democracy in America" remains the classic primer on American freedom, studied Americans as closely as America. He called juries a “free school,” in that they “instill some of the habits of the judicial mind into every citizen, and just those habits are the very best way of preparing people to be free.”

I can attest that my jury took those habits, and their inherent responsibility, deadly seriously.

We collaborated respectfully while deliberating. Of our group of six, three of us were older, three younger. A 20-something (or so he looked to me) with shoulder-length hair was chosen foreman, based on the judge’s suggestion that we pick someone experienced in running meetings. Another juror was entering her junior year at UMass. The older bench included one woman, an African American gentleman and me.

In one respect, we were not as random as the courts presumed: Four of the six were Trekkies. Good taste is too universal to filter out.

That our deliberations took just an hour or so owed to the straightforward case and the judge’s orders: weigh only the evidence presented. The defendant testified that he’d drunk half of a 7-ounce whiskey flask mixed with Coca-Cola, nursing it over an hour at a concert in Boston on St. Patrick’s Day eve. He's 6-foot-3 and weighs more than 260 pounds.

The troopers pulled him over on his drive home to New Hampshire after he swerved twice – once into the breakdown lane and then, again, toward an exit from which he veered away. They described his eyes as glassy and bloodshot, his words slurred. And it was the weekend of a heavy-drinking holiday. The prosecution did not present the results of a blood alcohol test.

I doubt I’ll ever see my fellow jurors again. But it was a privilege serving with people who took their civic duty seriously.

The body-cam footage, played in open court and provided to us to review during our deliberations, suggested a few slurred words at best. Otherwise, he enunciated well enough to make Sir John Gielgud proud. He was cooperative, not belligerent. We wondered if some of what the troopers observed when they stopped the defendant might have resulted from fatigue? We sent the judge a question about considering that factor. After all, he was pulled over at 1 a.m. following a long day, and his arrest and booking took several hours.

The prosecutor argued that the driver wasn’t at 100 percent alertness that night. Given what the troopers observed and their solemn responsibility for public safety, some (perhaps all?) of us believed that they had a legitimate reason to pull him over. But given the presumption of innocence afforded to the accused in our system, we harbored too much reasonable doubt.

Our verdict: not guilty.

I doubt I’ll ever see my fellow jurors again. But it was a privilege serving with people who took their civic duty seriously. Sparing two days to fulfill an essential role in our free society felt a small price to pay as a bulwark of small-d democracy.

The trial we heard was the only one starting that day, so while many were called for jury duty, only a few were chosen (to borrow from the bible). Under Massachusetts’  One Day or One Trial system, the multitude of summoned jurors who weren’t selected to serve were discharged mid-morning, their service completed.

All of us, whether we heard the trial or not, are exempt for three years from further duty. I don’t regret being off the hook. Nor do I regret my two days on it.

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