Juror 988 at the Essex County Courthouse

Earlier this week I was tapped to live up to my responsibilities as a citizen and report for jury duty. I have to admit that I was not enthusiastic about the opportunity to serve, and it was difficult not to focus on work that needed to get done, meetings that would have to be rescheduled, the hassle of needing to borrow my parents' car and navigating my way to the Essex County Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey.

Intellectually, I knew that this was completely the wrong attitude to have. The reality is that for every group of inconvenienced jurists, there is a defendant, victim, or victim's family who care deeply about the administration of justice. What might seem like a hassle and waste of time for a potential juror could be the difference of life or death, of freedom or incarceration - a decision that will affect families and the trajectory of reconciliation. I really tried to embrace this attitude, but sadly I failed as you'll see later on.

As I drove from my suburban home to Newark, it was clear that my suburban sensitivities over the years have made me a bit soft and paranoid (I am the Suburban Family Guy, after all). So as I drove through South Orange Avenue past neigborhoods a little less, uh, cultivated, I found myself feeling like Colonel Al-Ghazi in the film "The Kingdom" driving the SUV in the unfriendly militant neighborhood of Suweidi telling his American comrades, "This is a dangerous place. We should not be here..."

I'm not proud of this per se. If anything, it reminds me of my need to break out of my own comfort zone of white picket fences and neatly manicured lawns. As I think about being missional in my neighborhood, I think that must include lower-income parts of the county where poverty and crime are more prevalent. Even though I spent a good deal of time in West Philadelphia and Morningside Heights, it's true that you can live at the doorstep, even in the midst of a less-privileged community but still be completely uninvolved and disengaged with it.

The courthouse itself was surprisingly nice. Renovated five years ago, the waiting rooms include comfortable chairs and multiple flat-panel LCD televisions broadcasting either PBS, ESPN, or CNN. A separate computer lounge has partitioned stations with outlets and WiFi and stands adjacent to a lounge where free coffee is served. All this, plus non-state employees are given a five dollar stipend to compensate for loss of wages. Yes, it barely paid for the cost of my gas, but I'm not going to say anything which is going to tempt Governor Corzine to jack up property taxes even more.

As for my own service, I was put in a jury pool and waited in the gallery as jury selection began. There was a series of questions, only one of which, "Would you weigh the testimony of a police officer above others in this court?" I raised my hand in the affirmative. The judge seated fourteen "preliminary" jurors and then the fun began.

For those of you who aren't lawyers or who haven't served jury duty in a while, both the prosecution and defense used peremptory challenges to dismiss various members of the "original fourteen" jurors, leaving a void which needed to be filled by those remaining in the jury pool (including myself). I had pretty much decided, despite my wish that to be more gung-ho about my civic duty, that I did not want to sit on a case which was projected to last through next week, so with each peremptory challenge, I felt slowly pushed towards the frying pan as "acceptable jurors" were slowly paraded one by one to answer questions about our biases, our beliefs, and our backgrounds. And with each peremptory challenge (mostly by the defense), I subconsciously was thinking, "I will be one extremely irritated juror if your challenges end up putting me in that jury box for the next seven days. Believe me that you do not want me there because though I will try my best to be impartial, my spite may very well end up getting your client implicated on additional charges."

Just when I thought I was going to be brought up to be vetted, the judge put outside the remaining eleven of us and called us back in one by one. When I was called in, the judge asked me to explain my initial affirmative response to the question of "Would you weigh the testimony of a police officer above others in this court?" I began to answer that "Well Your Honor, given that an officer takes a solemn oath to protect and serve, I... " before he abruptly cut me off and said, "Thank you very much, you're dismissed 'for cause', you can go downstairs now."

I was simultaneously relieved and jilted. Maybe the people-pleaser in me was disappointed that somehow I gave the "wrong" answer, even though it was an honest one. To add the cherry on top, the court administrators waived our second day of service, which led to a group cheer from those of us in the waiting area. I've had worst ways to spend a Wednesday. And I did mention the five dollars, correct?