File:About Jury Duty, March 22, 2011 0322111022A (5554156569).jpg

The newly restored 1910 Harris County Courthouse.

I took this from the ninth floor of the civil courts building while I was waiting to find out whether or not I had been selected to serve on a jury in a civil trial involving pain and suffering after an automobile accident. I wasn't selected. Being 27th in a 40 person panel played a large part in that.

The whole process fascinates me and I've participated in juries in the past with a mixture of grim sad responsibility and interest in the proceedings.

When I'd told co-workers that I would be missing work yesterday for jury duty, the response, all too common, though intended as humor, was that you can avoid serving by telling them that you think the sonofabitch should be fried.

We'll ignore the fact that many trials are civil rather than criminal. We'll discuss tort "reform" another time.

One co-worker whom I (still) like and respect then told me about the last time he'd been called for jury duty.

During vois dire he told the attorneys for the defendant that he wouldn't be able to even consider the possibility that the defendant, rough looking, covered in tattoos, and charged with selling drugs near a schoolground, might be innocent.

I hear this sort of thing from people too frequently. Their feeling is that, if the accused hadn't been a bad guy, he wouldn't have been arrested, and, if he didn't do this crime, he'd probably done plenty of other things for which he hadn't been caught.

I even hear the argument when people claim that too much effort is being spent attempting to exonerate innocent people on death row.

Even if, somehow, we accept the argument (and I cannot), that there's some justice in putting bad guys in jail even if for a crime they didn't commit (that time), we are left with a reality that should disturb all of us.

When we convict a person, even a bad guy, of a crime that he didn't commit, the person who actually did commit the robbery, the beating, the murder, the rape, is probably out in the world free to do it again...

and again...