The Nature of the Crime

That was the problem.

 I got a jury summons, and for the first time I actually had to show up.  With dread and some curiosity,  I took BART to the Wiley W. Manuel Court House in Oakland, down near the 880 freeway.

All went fine in the jury assembly room, with its comfortable sofas and chairs and the pleasant woman who was in charge of us.  There were forms to fill out and explanations of how it all works,  and a roll call, and then one by one we were called to go to a room on the sixth floor known as "Department 113."  That turned out to be a court room.  The defendant, the defense attorney, and the assistant DA rose to greet us with big smiles.

We sat.  Another roll call.  The judge appeared, a tidy figure in his black robes, very deferential to us, polite, and funny.  We were sworn in.

The judge told us the charges against the defendant: Assault on a woman with whom the defendant had a "long-term dating relationship or engagement," plus vandalism. 

That was  a big problem for me.    Sitting at the check-in table at the Food Pantry, I hear stories from women who are victims of domestic violence, how their lives have been turned upside down; how they find themselves and their children in poverty, living in fear;  how restraining orders don't work.  They lean across the table and whisper the details.  I also have a friend works at an agency for homeless and low-income women and children, and I hear about her work.  She estimates that 90% of the clients have domestic violence in their background.

I mentally prepared a speech for the judge telling him why I couldn't serve.

But it never came to that.  The clerk pulled 18 names out of a hat, and none was mine.  For six hours over two days, I sat with my speech at the ready and listened to other prospective jurors being questioned. One woman was excused when she said her sister-in-law had been assaulted and killed ten years ago.  She wept.  No fewer than six women requested that they tell their stories in the privacy of the judge's chambers.  All were excused.  If it's possible to be rapt, bored, sad, and outraged all at the same time, I was.

Late in the afternoon, the judge gave us a ten-minute break.  The wide corridor outside the court room had floor-to-ceiling windows with an expansive view of downtown Oakland and the hills.  Just below us, painted on the side of an old brick building, was an ancient ad for MJB coffee that consisted of a single word: "Why?"  Enigmatic and also sad.  Downtown Oakland is beginning to look like Detroit.

Anyway, I didn't have to find something to do for an hour-and-half at lunchtime.  On the second day, we non-chosen were excused just before noon.