I’m Called for Jury Service-I Lead the Defendant

When I report at 9:00 am for local jury duty, I hope to go home at 10. Well, it can be noon, I think, while I live a few rounds of jury selection.

The judge warned that this would be a great opportunity to learn about our court system firsthand. He said he expected the case to go quickly and easily. It is not.

In the jury room, where we received instructions and left our coats, an old man with a white beard grumbled because he had lost Santa Claus gigs. “We have to finish by evening so we can all do our Christmas shopping,” said the woman.

After we found our place in the jury box, the plaintiff took the stand. He is smart and clean-cut, wears a suit and tie, and smiles confidently. Defendant followed him, he was more disheveled, wearing a flannel and jeans. He was more restless. He made another grammatical mistake.

I took notes, focused intently on reconstructing the story. A year ago, the plaintiff was plowing snow from the parking lot of the bakery and the previous road. The defendant, whose house was next to the bakery, worried from his window that the plaintiff’s tractor was too close to set his car on fire. He opened the door and shouted. The plaintiff did not hear, so the defendant ran outside, barefoot and in short sleeves, to the tractor. It’s fifteen degrees.

Defendant swung up onto the seat of the tractor. “I was just trying to talk to him,” the defendant said, denying that he had challenged the plaintiff to a fight. Appellant insisted otherwise: “He jumped on my tractor and told me to get out because he wanted to fight me.”

Appellant said he stopped the tractor and got out “to talk.” But before he could start a civilized conversation, the defendant punched him. Plaintiff returned.

So wait, I think. If the defendant had said, “Stop this tractor. I’m going to fight you,” why did the plaintiff immediately stop the tractor and get out? Couldn’t he drive them away? If he was threatened, couldn’t he have stayed in the tractor and called the police from his cell phone? Why is he willing to accept the neighbor’s challenge? If the neighbor had really threatened him, why did he now seem surprised that there was a fight?

The plaintiff’s family came running from the bakery and pushed the defendant into the snow. He was held there for half an hour while he waited for the police to arrive. Some thought of covering the accused with a blanket. However, he is underdressed and in the snow for half an hour at 15 degrees, in half the time at that temperature, a person can die from hypothermia. The plaintiff said the defendant struggled and threatened to burn down the plaintiff’s house if the plaintiff did not let him leave.

When the police arrived, did they file charges against the appellant for attempted murder? No, according to the words of the plaintiff and his family, he filed a lawsuit against the defendant for the attack and threat of terrorism. He then took the defendant to the hospital where he was treated for hypothermia.

I am more dismayed that I gave up the day for this. If these two people had kindergarten, they would have been taught all the points that they could de-escalate the situation instead of provoking each other into a physical altercation.

Two kindergartens in the same situation should be held equally accountable, although I suspect that the one who nearly killed his classmate should at least be suspended. But now, as an adult, he had to bury at least twenty-one people – the judge, two lawyers, a court reporter, a policeman, a juror, two jury room attendants, and two alternates – for hours to judge what had happened. like a playground scuffle with deadly consequences.

We have three options: to find the accused guilty, to find him not guilty, or to find both people guilty of fighting by mutual consent. Seems like an easy decision to me. Both of them went to war.

We adjourn to the jury room. After a long, hesitant silence, a young man with a knitted hat pulled down on his forehead, let’s call him Tad, said, “That man is obviously guilty.”

“Let’s take the vote,” said the woman in her fifties who had been chosen foreman, I’ll call her Betty. She wears a cross necklace and a floral dress. “Who thinks the accused is to blame?”

Everyone raised their hands, but me and a young woman with a small tattoo of a rose on her wrist, who I’ll call Madison.

I opened a voluminous note, explaining my position. No one listens. Notepad is usually empty.

“Well, the judge thinks it’s an easy case so it’s clear they want us to find the wrong person,” Tad told me. “Do you think you know better than the judge?”

“The police officer filed charges and he’s an expert,” said the young woman who kept flirting with Tad and Santa Claus, Emily, I’ll call her. “Do you think you know better than the police?”

“Didn’t we all sign an agreement that we would not give other officials any credibility or less than other professions?” I asked.

“Do you think you know better than a snow plow lawyer?” the young woman I will call Olivia with an armful of bracelets snaps at me. “He’s the one with legal training and he knows more than we do, so we should give our comments more weight. Let’s find someone else to blame and go home. I have a job to do.”

“And defense attorneys don’t have the same training?” I asked. Olivia raised her hands, the bracelets. Tad’s mouth tightened.

“Let’s vote again,” Betty said. “Who thinks the accused is to blame?”

Ten hands up. Madison squirms and huffs and opens and closes her fists on the table before she flings up her hands as if she has decided to capitulate. When I didn’t raise my hand, it felt like the whole room was laughing.

“How many people think that both men are guilty of agreeing to go to war?” I asked.

No hands up.

“Today is my only day off,” Olivia complained, narrowing her eyes at me.
“I lost all my Santa Claus commitments,” said Santa Claus. Glares towards me multiply as I sadistically deny the children of the world the chance to sit on the lap of a mythical character.

“Don’t you have anything better?” Tad asked four times as I tried to explain my thoughts.

“The plow driver was very traumatized by this experience and was victimized by his neighbors. How dare he deny his feelings?” Emily asked me.
It felt like I was being judged and punished. “I don’t deny his feelings,” I said. “I just don’t see any evidence that the plaintiff was traumatized or the victim. And how did the other person feel? The man who was held in the snow for half an hour?”

“Feelings don’t matter. If someone threatens MY child, I’ll hold them in the snow too. I just thought you’d let someone burn down your house and hurt your children?” a woman in her thirties who has never taken off her coat, Nicole, not her real name, said contemptuously.

“I don’t remember any threats against anyone’s children,” I replied. My voice was getting hoarse, which at least did not hide the signs of shaking.

“Obviously the plowman is more reliable because he’s calmer and the neighbors don’t worry,” Tad said. “That means he’s guilty.”
“Isn’t he nervous?” I said, trying not to panic. “Isn’t it because he’s the person everyone associates with in this scenario?”

“The fact that your neighbor is running in 15 degrees without a coat means he’s going to fight,” Olivia said.

“If you’re worried about your car breaking down and acting impulsively in response, can’t you take the time to put on your shoes and coat?” I put my sweaty palms on my pants.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time, if someone makes a threat, they do,” Tad said authoritatively. Everyone nodded.

“That’s not a real statistic,” I said.

“Are you calling Tad a liar?” asked Emily.

“So you don’t think the neighbor’s behavior is inappropriate?” Nicole faced me.

my mouth is dry. “Yeah,” I said as I grabbed a paper Dixie water cup from the machine in the corner, trying to keep my hands off, trying to look nonchalant. “I think everyone’s behavior is inappropriate, but rudeness is not a crime.”

“Let’s vote again,” Betty said. Eleven jurors voted that the defendant was guilty. I kept my hands down.

Madison hit her head on the table. Emily and Olivia grinned. Santa Claus rolled his eyes.

The clock dragged on. The discussion continues in circles. At five o’clock, I finally took off the phone, almost splashing the water. “I have to call,” I said. “My dog ​​has been gone all day and this is the longest I’ve ever left him.”

“Why don’t you vote if it’s the wrong neighbor and then we can all go,” Tad said.

“You want me to vote for the wrong person even though I don’t believe he’s just the wrong party?”

“Well, you can’t use the phone,” Nicole said.

“That’s what the aides say,” Tad agreed.

“Yes,” said Emily.

“If you’re so worried about your dog, why don’t you do the right thing and let them go,” Olivia said.

Betty and Santa Claus and Madison stared at me uneasily as if they were not sure what body-block me from leaving the room. Others shouted.

I raised an eyebrow, went out into the hall, and asked the maid if I could make a call. They say of course.

For another half hour we all repeated the same points, stronger in our positions than before. Finally, at 6:00 p.m., the judge invited us back to the courtroom. The plaintiff’s eyebrows were furrowed. The accused had a strange look on his face, like he could hardly believe that someone wasn’t automatically against him.

The judge told me that sometimes that happens. He said he would forgive us. Some tension left me: we don’t have to go back and repeat all this tomorrow.

Driving home, my anxiety finally dissipated as I tried to process what had just happened. I believe in the importance of intuition and subjectivity, but I am surprised how this situation echoes a national event where facts, statistics, and arguments are tied to feelings, biases, and peer pressure. I wonder if this case will go to trial again. I wonder if I have condemned Pennsylvania taxpayers and other jurors to another day of deliberations if I have contributed even more to normalizing, even sanctioning, toxic masculinity, by wasting more time in the court of law.

I don’t know what the verdict of the trial was, because it happened in December 2022 and the jury was dismissed, but a few weeks later, I saw Santa Claus in the frozen section at Walmart. He cast puzzled glances at me as if trying to put me down. I had a vision of being pushed by an angry mob into a refrigerator to die of hypothermia, and I ran to the vegetable aisle.

Nancy McCabe is the author of nine books, most recently The Pamela Papers: A Mostly E-pistolary Story about Academic Pandemic Pandemonium. He directs the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford and teaches in the low-residency MFA writing program at Spalding University.

All opinions expressed are solely those of the authors.

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