t r u t h o u t | Guest Columnist
Tuesday 17 July 2007
Day One
"La Toya Jackson."
The famous name drew laughter as it was read from the roll at the main New York County courthouse, 100 Centre Street. Hers was just one of a few hundred names read on a Monday morning four weeks ago, folks who had been called to serve on a state grand jury in Manhattan.
Like La Toya, half or more weren't there as they called the roll, but I was. Having been previously excused several times, it was time for me to do my civic duty, one of the few beyond voting and paying taxes we're ever called on to perform.
"No," I heard a bailiff tell an especially desperate-looking grad-student type. "You cannot be excused for your entire life!" More laughter from the crowd.
Day Two
Duly sworn in, 23 of us - the mandated number of grand jurors goes back to the Sanhedrin, the municipal courts of ancient Israel - gather in the spare, fluorescent-lit room that's our own grand jury "chamber." There are eight rows of chairs for us and two tables with chairs for the jury warden, who will be in charge of keeping an eye on us, and an array of assistant district attorneys, witnesses - civilian and police - court stenographers and interpreters. Every weekday morning for the next month, from 10 AM to 1 PM, this will be home.
We won't be declaring anyone innocent or guilty. We indict. As our official handbook states, "The grand jury decides whether or not a person should be formally charged with a crime or other offense. The grand jury makes that decision based on evidence presented to it by the prosecutor, who also instructs the grand jury on the law." There has to be a quorum of at least 16 jurors in the room, of whom 12 must vote to indict. Then, the case goes to trial.
Our deliberations were confidential, so I can't tell you who we indicted for what or why. What I can share is a sidelong glance at one aspect of our justice system.
I'd been led to believe by friends most of our cases would involve narcotics, but our 20-day tour of duty will begin with a shoplifting case and end with a wallet snatch. About a third of the cases we hear are drug-related, but this is the town where they film "Law and Order" - all of them - and we hear evidence on everything from taser attacks to credit card fraud and homicide.
It's a lot different from the grand jury on which my sister served in a rural town upstate. That, she says, just required checking in with the courthouse once a week to see if anyone had to be indicted for stealing venison.
Day Five
Rape, check kiting, illegal possession of a firearm, gang shootings, bank robberies, forgery - the variety of crimes is stunning, as is the shape, size, ethnicity and gender of the various, mostly young, assistant district attorneys scurrying in and out, presenting the cases. Rarely do we see the same one twice. Each carries a sky-blue paperback about the size of an almanac, "New York State Criminal Law", and a green, looseleaf notebook, the "Grand Jury Felony Manual."
A surprising number of the cases involve identity theft. And most of our cases are alleged crimes perpetrated by minorities against other minorities, unless a senior citizen is involved. The elderly are equal-opportunity victims: rich or poor, male or female, black, white, Hispanic or Asian.
The jury rows are developing unique personalities. The smart kids are in one row, the slackers in another. I'm not in either.
Day Eight
Last night, I was watching "Law and Order." Their grand jury chamber was mahogany-paneled, plush with stained-glass windows. I'm betting they had an open bar and hot hors d'oeuvres. In our room this morning, I flicked a small cockroach from the peeled-paint windowsill out into the airshaft.
An assault, a shoplifting, counterfeit credit cards, illegal knives, drug possession, bootleg DVDs. "We're really busy today," a juror brightly chirps to our warden.
"Yeah," he replies sardonically. "We got the criminals on the run."
Day Twelve
Charges are dropped against one of the suspects in a robbery case. When asked why, the warden responds, "What is it they say - confession is good for the soul?"
Illegal possession of a machine gun silencer, violation of a restraining order, attempted breaking and entering, a box cutter slashing. An alleged robber is traced via a cell phone number he gave his victim. What they used to say on my friend Tom Fontana's TV series "Homicide" is true - crime makes you stupid.
Day Fifteen
A couple of new things I have learned on grand jury duty:
Never steal anything from Starbucks. They have an expensive, sophisticated video surveillance system that's light-years ahead of the Department of Homeland Security, and they will come down on you with the thunder of God's own drums. No wonder a frappuccino costs five dollars. Remember when they tried to shake down a Starbucks on "The Sopranos?" There's a reason it didn't work.
When presented with a police photo array or physical line-up of six people, the person suspected of the crime is always Number Three. It's uncanny. Later, a policeman explains suspects are allowed to pick where they'll stand in a line-up. They tend to go for the middle. Crime makes you stupid.
Perhaps, the term of the grand jury should be reduced from four weeks to three. In the beginning, we were more open to asking questions and debating the indictments. Now we're starting to rubberstamp, to click into autopilot. The old joke that a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich rings truer each day.
Day Eighteen
A case of grand larceny which involves DNA evidence rekindles our interest - it's real "CSI" stuff, especially when a scientist explains the likelihood of the exact same DNA occurring in two people not identical twins would require the total population of 166 "planet Earths." The juror who has revealed herself as our biggest. closet Court TV junkie exclaims, "Then how did OJ get off?"
A police officer alleges he found 22 bags of cocaine on (in? up?) a suspect during a rectal search at the precinct house. "It's glamorous work," the cop says with a shrug. "Now you know why it's called 'crack,'" a juror replies.
Day Twenty
Last day. Walking to the courthouse, I run into a fellow juror with whom I never have spoken until now. She tells me she hates everyone in her row.
We end with a whimper, not a bang. One case continued from a previous day is finished, another is withdrawn. There's a mugging and a DWI. And that's it. We're handed cards attesting to our service and sprung, supposedly, for the next eight years.
Over the four weeks, we heard some seventy cases. There's a consistency and formality to the system that's actually reassuring, a structure that sometimes seems silly or redundant, but somehow works. Mostly.
Which makes it all the more frustrating to watch how our current government subverts this time-wrought and carefully rendered legal system. While we were doing our duty in that not-so-grand grand jury "chamber," President Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence. As you'll recall, he said it was "excessive," an opinion which perplexed Reggie B. Walton, the judge in the case.
Last week, Walton wrote, "The Court notes that the term of incarceration imposed in this case was determined after a careful consideration of each of the requite statutory factors, and was consistent with the bottom end of the applicable sentencing range as properly calculated under the United States Sentencing Guidelines."
As Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin put it, "Even Paris Hilton had to go to jail." And as the July 4 Los Angeles Times reported, federal prosecutors said Bush's commutation "would make it harder for them to persuade judges to deliver appropriate sentences."
During our grand jury tenure, the White House also claimed executive privilege gave it the right to withhold documents and to keep former White House counsel Harriet Miers from having to testify about the fired US attorneys mess before the House Judiciary Committee, despite a subpoena ordering her to do so.
There ought to be a law. Oh, wait - there is. The House has started proceedings to hold Ms. Miers in contempt of Congress. As for the president, there's Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, the part which talks about "high crimes and misdemeanors."
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Michael Winship, Writers Guild of America Award winner and former writer with Bill Moyers, writes this weekly column for the Messenger Post Newspapers in upstate New York. This article has also been published by the Messenger Post.
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