that being said, the selection process was a remarkably personal and exposing public encounter- the judge announces to the court your full name, your age, your home address. imagine being sworn under oath and then him asking you, in front of a room full of (40? 50?) people, to describe your occupation and what your children’s names are if you have them and what they do and also what personal/ethnic biases you may have against any of the parties involved. like literally asking you to admit that you “can’t believe a thing a redhead says” in front of a room full of people (arbitrary example folks, not to worry). and to think that most people would rather die than speak in public..
after the court deliberated, the characters that got chosen for my panel involved:
-the girl who admitted to being able to eat an entire bag of candy corn in 2 days
-the ex-lawyer who the group looked to as our natural, unofficial leader
-the lethargic, 40 year black lady in the corner named “sparkles” who didn’t say a word
-the hispanic man, who clearly didn’t speak english, but smiled a lot, and nodded when everyone else did
-the foreign lady who took it as her job to break awkward silences
-the 2 yuppie girls making friends with each other, talking about their workout regimens, the grocery store and their fiances
-the other black lady who was just happy to be there instead of outside directing planes in negative-degree weather
-the lady cop with a bleach blonde cinnabon sized bun on top of her head (who looked more like a cartoon than an official)
-the jewish lady’s lawyer, who held doors open, smiled, poured us glasses of water to keep us on his side
-the defendant’s lawyer, a short man who talked like ditka who could make a point without even speaking – just clearing his throat at the right moment in the opposition’s speech
-me, in the corner, scribbling down ethnographic research on the provided legal pad
now, with all of these characters involved, i couldn’t help but to read into jury duty’s resemblance to theatre…the idea that the entire thing was simply a play of stereotypes and values. as i just started working at steppenwolf theater, drama has been on my mind, especially in combination with the ideas i gathered from my 20th century drama class about honesty, truth, and what theater does to unveil or conceal just what those are (see post: “that is thus”).
essentially, theater teaches us that each individual carries with them a different idea of truth- that no one shares the same truth- because everyone has a different perspective, takes a different path, putting together their own personal experiences to create only a partial vision of “the whole story”. as drama often unfolds, we see that what is true to one character in a play (that they have been having an extramarital affair) may be completely different to another character’s truth (that their spouse is a faithful and happy companion), and the audience is in the unique, god-like position of seeing both sides to the same story, or maybe even 3 or 4 or 5 sides. at jury duty, we were in the audience’s position as 2 different sides- the prosecutor, the defendant- of the same story were delivered to us. it was our job to decide whose side carried more truth, or what, with the evidence presented, actually happened at the scene of the crime.
in particular, we were dealing with what the jury unanimously decided was an over-dramatic woman trying to sue a cab driver who hit her at 5-10mph tops and caused her “whiplash”, “two broken teeth” (which cracked, according to dental records, mysteriously 3 months after the accident), and upwards of $70,000 worth of “pain and suffering”. after sitting through 3 days of doctors, dentists, physical therapists, and lawyers testimonies, we were allowed to deliberate the multiple stories that were delivered to us, stringing together the disparate pieces of evidence that were presented to create a vision of “the whole story”.
of course, no one will ever know the whole story, because it might not have been strategic for either party to disclose. despite the air of objectivity that the court tries to create- using high paid professionals (the PHDs clocked in at $1,000 an hour to participate) and that whole ritualistic “i will tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth” rigamarole to fabricate a sense of trust in the evidence- everything was still very subjective, very performative- presented in a way to achieve a desired reading. the lawyers spoke from curated scripts, including only the information that would help their cases, and leaving out or objecting to anything that could raise a question about their claims. it remained, for example, undisclosed whether or not the couple made it to their dinner reservation after the accident, and no records of any car repairs were provided, making it questionable if she really did break her tooth in the incident. just like theater, then, t
he court uses a strategic play of dialogue to blur just what the truth is, only to reveal that there is none, or at least none that we mere mortals can access (it makes sense, considering this, that a jehovah’s witness in the jury selection process told the judge she could not participate because she believes “it is not our place to be The Judge”. she got out of it, of course).the justice system like theater makes evident that there is never just one way of seeing...but the justice system, unlike theater, makes a final decision about which way to see- a decision which makes a very real impact on the freedom and future of an individual.
at first, i had never felt so close to the constitution. i slightly believe the judge selected each of us because, after our brief yet revealing introductions, he decided we were the ones who needed this sort of lesson (the hispanic man, for instance, could be taught what being an american citizen means; i, as the youngest person there, could be taught what it means to make important decisions which impact real-life circumstances). but by the end of the process, what i learned was how far we actually are from the constitution, how hard it is to have rules and institutions around unquantifiable human behavior. i learned that although we can create systems of order, human behavior will always prevail, uncontained, as it did when the defending lawyer called the plantiff a “con-artist”, or when he played into our specific emotions- some of the jury were victims of more serious car accidents, as he learned during the introductions, and some of our faces could be read to reveal our biases- in order to sway our sympathies. the justice system, like theater, is a living breathing thing, always contingent upon the performance delivered, and the individual experiences which the audience members (or jury) bring with them. considering this, the idea of chaos is the closest thing we have to the idea of truth.
the jury duty experience then fits well into the other life lessons i’m gathering out here in “the real world”: that you can have a full-time job and a cubicle at a prestigious institution and still be surrounded by people who have no idea what they’re doing, in life or otherwise; that you can take the train at the same time every morning but still arrive at a different time everyday; that your employers might not actually notice or even really care that you’re late because of said train because their cat is sick and that’s all they can think about. adults are really just children in grown-up bodies with fancy titles and suits and paperwork, who look at their watches more often than the sky and complain about the weather so they don’t have to reveal themselves to each other. it’s interesting, and funny, and this world is more full of mystery than anyone, it seems, but me, wants to think about.
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featured artists: andrew b meyers, jacob jugashvili, jade fenu
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