Dartmouth students, like many of our idealistic, college-aged brethren, are always looking for ways to help the world. From Katrina relief efforts to Dartmouth Ends Hunger to College Republicans to mentorship programs of every kind, we understand the need to reach out to those less fortunate than ourselves.
America understands this, too. We are the most charitable country on earth, donating twice as much money as the next highest country. Yet one of the best ways to serve the cause of justice and human dignity, not to mention democracy, is routinely ridiculed despite its tremendous importance to the fabric of our nation. I am talking about jury duty.
Two recent cases in the news show just how ridiculous the popular conception of jury duty has become.
The first involves a juror who listened to her iPod throughout a murder trial, concealing the device under a hijab. The presiding judge eventually discovered the malfeasance and the juror was discharged from the trial and later arrested for contempt of court. I have not heard any updates on conviction or punishment on the contempt charge, but if listening to an iPod does not show the most blatant disrespect for the court and all parties involved, I do not know what does.
The second episode saw a Massachusetts man declare himself homophobic and racist to avoid jury duty. When pressed on these claims, the man also asserted that he might be a habitual liar. Though I suppose that lying is better than prejudicing the entire trial, prosecutors were definitely right to press charges against this man.
I wish that I could cite these examples as aberrations. But jury misconduct is all too common and getting more frequent still. Jurors falling asleep during the trial are the tip of the iceberg, while using a Ouija board to determine guilt or innocence is somewhere deeper down.
The most obvious case for jury duty rests on democratic grounds. When the United States moved for independence from the Crown, jury abuses were foremost in their enumerated grievances and key in their justification. Specifically, colonists complained that royal soldiers were not tried by colonial juries but rather taken back to Britain for trial. The verdict: no justice for the victims and certainly no objective justice. More broadly, juries embodied the principle that representation, consent and enforcement all rested on the foundation of the people.
Two summers ago I worked in the kitchen of a seafood restaurant with a number of international students. Over a fifty-pound bag of raw scallops, I remember discussing differences in culture and politics with a Lithuanian law student, who literally laughed at the notion of the jury, of citizens rather than trained professionals laying down a verdict. But democratic roots and popular constitutionalism is the difference between America and most every other country in the world.
But perhaps more relevant to our concerns at Dartmouth are arguments for jury duty based on equality and justice. We complain about inequality and discrimination on many different levels, including race, class, disability and gender. In almost all civil and criminal legal cases the jury is the ultimate equalizer -- or at least it is supposed to be. An impartial jury can remedy almost anything, from unfair police practices to state discrimination. But juries can remedy such wrong only when composed of democratic-minded citizens and legitimate peers.
Just as we strive to implement justice in the private sector through advocacy groups, law firms and businesses, we can do the same in the public sector. So while we should not forgo corporate recruiting or that summer internship in working to make the world a better place, we should embrace the humanitarian right to serve on a jury en route to the same goal. And while we do this, we should probably keep our headphones off.
