Several years ago when she was the Public Defender for Clark and Edgar counties, my sister Jeanne found herself defending two brothers on a murder charge. The alleged crime took place a decade before, and no bodies were ever recovered. Using her considerable skills Jeanne was able to convince a jury to deliver a non-guilty verdict based on reasonable doubt. Shortly thereafter, the mother of the defendants gave Jeanne a large handmade wooden plaque carved with flowers and etched with the words: “To Jeanne Sathre, a Rose in the Thorns of Justice.”
When I got my notice to appear at the Champaign Court House to serve a week of jury duty, it occurred to me that while I was never going to be a Rose in the Thorns of Justice, this might be my chance to be part of the bouquet!
This was not my first notice to appear for jury duty. Almost thirty years ago, when I came home from the hospital with my newly born twin daughters, waiting for me, along with five year old Steve and three year old Leslie, was a summons from the Champaign County Clerk. I remember calling the Clerk’s office and telling some anonymous person that “I would be happy to serve, but that currently I was recovering from a C-Section and trying to take care of 4 children under the age of five,including two newborns.” I distinctly remember that person saying, “Oh you poor thing, don’t worry about it!” I can only infer that this sympathetic person put some sort of giant star by my name and buried my name under piles of bureaucratic red tape since my name never again came up on the jury roster until now.
All these years later I walked into the Champaign Court House fully confident that I was very well prepared to be a standout juror. After all those years of refereeing battles between the aforementioned twins, after years and years of watching reruns of Law and Order, after reading every John Grisham book, after years of observing the telltale signs of four teenagers speaking less than the full truth, I was ready to bloom in a courtroom!
But, as is too often the case, neither John Grisham nor Law and Order had prepared me for the reality of jury duty in Champaign, Illinois. Day 1 I reported as ordered to the jury room where, along with 150 of my fellow potential jurors, I watched a video that told me what to expect, all of which I already knew from those Law and Order episodes. Then half of us were excused for the day while the other half were told to come back for the afternoon. I was in the returning group, so after a quick lunch, I soon found myself back in the jury room. Where I remained for quite a long time, long enough to get well into a police procedural mystery book. Finally, however, my wait was over, and my foray into the halls of justice was about to begin. As a group, forty of us were led upstairs to a third floor courtroom where a jury for a residential burglary case was ready to be empanelled.
Four potential jurors were called to the jury box, and the judge began asking them questions. ‘Did you,’ he asked, ‘recognize the defendant, or either attorney?’ “No,” I answered to myself. ‘Did you,’ he asked, ‘recognize any of the names of potential witnesses?’ “Mmm,’ I thought, ‘well, I knew the policeman from the soup kitchen backpack program.’ ‘Do you have,’ he asked, ‘any close friends or family members who are attorneys?’ ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘my sister is a public defender and a thorn in the side of Justice. And then there’s Helen Grandone and Peg O’Donoghue and Jim Hagle and Bill and Andy Hatch and Dick Joy....’ While I was still naming attorney friends, the judge was continuing, ‘Do you have, he asked, ‘have any close friends or family members who are police officers?’ ‘No,’ I thought. And then the killer question, the one that was going to keep me off this jury. “Have you or your family members ever been a victim of a crime?’ he asked. And I silently gulped, remembering the time in Chicago that I was the victim of armed robbery, the time my apartment was broken into. I remembered the time in St. Louis my car was stolen. I remembered the time Steve was mugged on the Illinois campus, the time he was arrested in Madison for disturbing the peace, and the time a roommate fraudulently wrote checks on his account. I was still coming up with crimes when the judge asked ‘Have you or your family members been convicted of a crime?’ and I was happy to realize that, discounting traffic tickets, we were a non-felonious family.
I sat for an interminable afternoon as more and more of my fellow jurors were called to the box, as more and more were rejected for cause. I was pretty sure that my own residential burglary, albeit one that took place almost 40 years ago, would be grounds for the Assistant DA to reject me. But I never got a chance to find out. A full jury was picked before my number was ever called, and the rest of us were thanked, told to call in to see if we were needed the following day, and dismissed.
Disappointed, I called the jury coordinator’s number that evening, only to find that numbers 1-50 were required to show up the following morning. Ever optimistic, I headed out on Day 2, sure that this would be my chance. After all, surely there were many crimes beside residential burglary, armed robbery, car theft, mugging, check fraud, and disturbing the peace that occurred regularly in Champaign.
After another long wait in the jury room where I finished the police procedural mystery that I began the day before, potential jurors 1-50 were told that the case had been settled, no jurors were needed, and that we were dismissed for the day. But please call and see if we were needed on Day 3.
Day 3, jurors 51-150 were needed. Number 11, me, was not needed.
Day 4, no jurors, including #11 were needed.
Day 5, no jurors, including #11 were needed.
‘Thank you for your service’ we were told.
No one etched it on a wooden plaque.
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