I’ve been tagged for jury duty, and several scenarios are playing out in my imagination.

My first reaction was “Maybe I’ll get a chance to practice Jury Nullification.” If it’s a case involving drug possession, prostitution, ticket scalping, doing something harmless without a license, etc., I’ll be able to keep the defendant out of jail.

It will be tricky, though. Prosecutors hate nullification, and routinely dismiss any juror who even hints they know about it. If I get past that, and get picked, playing it out during deliberations will be a balancing act. If I bring it up immediately, the foreman may call for an alternate before deliberations get going, so I’ll have to wait. If the jury is headed toward Not Guilty based on the evidence, I won’t need to even mention it. But if they’re heading towards a guilty verdict, can I change enough minds to get a unanimous Not Guilty? I can always hang the jury, but that means the defendant may have to go on trial again; an acquittal would be a much better outcome.

But what if the case involves a real crime? If someone is really guilty of murder, rape, robbery, assault, fraud, animal abuse – anything where there is an actual victim – I want to see them punished, but that brings in a whole different slew of doubts and problems.

My first problem is knowing that cops lie. A lot. They’re trained to lie during interrogations, and all that practice lets them lie on the stand, under oath, naturally and perfectly. There will be no way to tell if the cops testimony is factual, pure perjury, or some combination of the two. I’ll have to dismiss any police testimony. 

Physical evidence presents another problem. I’ve seen dozens of videos of cops clearly planting evidence, and read many articles by former cops detailing how it was done. In some precincts it’s a very common practice. So how can I tell if a piece of evidence is real, or was dropped on the scene by Officer Friendly?

If it is an honest piece of evidence, how do I know the lab processed it correctly? There have been many many cases of labs screwing things up, cross contaminating samples, analyzing samples incorrectly, and in quite a few instances, intentionally lying about the evidence. How can I trust any laboratory findings?

But at least there’s eyewitness testimony, right? Nope. Test after test confirms that eyewitness testimony, especially of unusual events, is often very wrong.

Have you ever told a story about something that happened to you, something you remember in detail, and discovered that you got it all wrong? Me too. Every time you remember something, the tale changes a bit in your head. Your brain plays telephone with itself, and much of what you recall, very clearly, never really happened the way you remember it.

So eyewitness testimony has to be heavily discounted, and maybe even ignored.

The only way I can make a confident decision is if there’s a clear video of the event, something I can see for myself. But that’s pretty rare. Since everything else is suspect, how can I be sure enough of the facts to put someone in a cage? On the other hand, I don’t want to free a dangerous individual who belongs in jail. This is going to be a very difficult decision.

Life would be easier if I were more unaware.

***

I was filling out the jury questionnaire, preparing to mail it, but wasn’t sure where the courthouse was. I called the number, and talked to the woman in charge of all the jurors.

She asked me for the date and my juror number. “Oh, you’re all set,” she said. “That case was settled,  so you don’t need to send that in. You won’t be called again for at least six years.” I asked her what the case was. “It was a civil suit. A slip and fall.”

Damn.