Brandonrush (CC0)
I am writing this while on jury duty. Almost nobody wants to be here. Like the dentist and the DMV, this obligation is met with an internal groan so universal that people would almost rather give up the right to be judged by a jury of their peers than be here. But, of course, at a fundamental level, none of us want to give up that right and the due process in which it is sandwiched. So here we all are, moaning and groaning about a process we believe in, even if it’s SO ANNOYING to uphold it.
When I get on my high horse about jury duty, it’s about being freelance. I look at the regular W-2 employees among us with feelings of envy. When you’re freelance, the client only cares about you delivering the work. If you have a conflict, you won’t get the job. If you’re a comedian and can’t show up to a gig, you won’t have the gig. Jury duty is so much more fraught for those of us with dozens of tiny bosses instead of one big boss who’s required to keep us employed. But no matter, I’m obligated to be here and, really, I believe in it! So I abandon my high horse.
There are no frills in this room. But mercifully, there are televisions. Of course, Food Network is playing—what could be more bipartisan? Julienning a carrot occurs on all points of the political spectrum, as does questioning Guy Fieri’s hair.
But as I look around, almost everyone is on their phone. Except for one guy who seems to be raw-dogging it. Which is to say, he’s not looking at a phone or the televisions. He’s not reading a book. He has no laptop, knitting accoutrements, worry beads, or fidget spinners. He’s not writing a screenplay—and this being Manhattan, that wouldn’t have been surprising. He’s not doing sudoku, Wordle, or writing his next column (guilty as charged). And he’s definitely not snacking. He’s looking around, occasionally smiling, seemingly to no one.
I had this vision that, at some point, we would all put down our devices and hang out. That the jury room would turn into a party. Or some kind of speed-friending scenario where we all match in groupings as lifelong besties. Or that we would launch into karaoke. There’s nothing in the Constitution that says jurors can’t do pretrial karaoke!
I’m reminded of the quote by Founding Father John Adams, who said of jury duty that it is “the heart and lungs of liberty. Without them, we have no other fortification against being ridden like horses, fleeced like sheep, worked like cattle, and fed and clothed like swine and hounds.” Sitting under the fluorescent lighting of the jury lounge, adjacent to a world-weary vending machine, I can assure Adams that we are certainly not being clothed like swine and hounds. That, in fact, technology has so transformed the landscape of urban life that most of us don’t even really know what he meant when he said “clothed like swine and hounds.” Was it just a cheeky way of saying “naked” and “in mud”?
It is hard to summon the glory of what is happening here, but I think it is my (jury) duty to try. What’s happening here, in the midst of nonstop derangement from the executive branch, is that American citizens are still calmly abiding by the law that brought them here, abiding by the social compact that makes this process sacred, and abiding by the core feeling that makes them American.
I look around this Manhattan courthouse, in a nondescript holding room in what is supposed to be an elite East Coast bubble, and I see Americans of every stripe. No bubble at all. I’ve heard French, Spanish, Polish, and another language I couldn’t figure out. I’ve heard testimony about jobs ranging from nursing to teaching to security guarding. I’ve seen young and old, fashionable and dowdy. A galvanizing mood is that everyone is a little grumpy—except the one guy who smiles for no reason—and yet, everyone is here. It’s almost as if we’re waiting it out together, quietly doing our (jury) duty, until the White House can once again rejoin us in being regular Americans, who believe.