Jury Duty: A Case for Law-Related Education

When the attorney asked her what she did for a living, the gray-haired, well-dressed woman said she was a housewife and had been one all her life.

When he asked what her husband did for a living, she said he was in the Navy.

"What does he do in the Navy?" the attorney asked.

"I don't know," she said.

The attorney pressed on. "Being in the Navy, does he travel a lot?"

"Yes," she said. They had lived in all parts of the world.

"But you don't know the kind of work he does?" the attorney asked.

"No."

"Do you keep up with the news?" he asked.

"No." She did not.

"Do you watch television?"

"No."

"Do you read newspapers or magazines?"

She did not.

By this time, most of us in the courtroom, who had been growing restless with the seemingly endless rounds of questioning of potential jurors, were leaning forward, listening with increasing interest and I daresay some disbelief. I figured her husband worked for the CIA, but I also wondered which side would want to keep her. After all, this trial that we were told could take several weeks involved asbestos and a naval shipyard. Whose purpose would be better served by having a juror who was a blank slate? And what was the woman thinking about this process?

Although this was the most memorable part of my first jury experience, I also soaked in some other knowledge about the process, such as voire dire, or the questioning of potential jurors; challenges for cause; peremptory challenges; and the roles of the defense attorney, the prosecution, and the judge. The courtroom was much smaller than what I'd seen on television; the judge did not look larger than life. I also learned about how some people try to get out of jury duty. This was indeed a civics lesson come alive at a time long before O.J. Simpson's and other media-saturated trials had made us all more knowledgeable about this process but also much more cynical.

"I do not know whether a jury is useful to those who have lawsuits," said historian Alexis de Tocqueville in his treatise, Democracy in America, "but I am certain it is highly beneficial to those who judge them; and I look upon it as one of the most efficacious means for the education of people which society can employ." (Chapter XVI: Causes Which Mitigate the Tyranny of the Majority in the United States, Trial by Jury in the United States Considered as a Political Institution) [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/...

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