When you are selected to serve on a Clallam County Superior Court jury, you do not use your own notebook for deliberation. You are given an old-fashioned steno pad and a stick-type ballpoint pen. You are told you can take notes or not, but the pads will be collected after the verdict is delivered, then the used pages destroyed. Following that cleansing, the used steno pads will go to the next jury.
My steno pad didn’t have a cardboard cover; I assume it disintegrated some juries back, maybe from spilled coffee or its heavy load of loaded words. Instead, my ‘cover’ was the first few pages stapled together. I knew this was the cover because someone had printed “COVER” in block letters. The only thing I added to it was my juror number on the removable sticker at the top near the spiral.
How many trials do you suppose an average steno pad would cover? How many prosecutors and defense attorneys desperate for us to take notes considering their truths, accepting them. Or not.
How many accused murderers, thieves, disturbers of the peace do you suppose have told their stories, jotted down in these old notebooks? Do all counties recycle this way? How many jurors felt the gut-wrenching fear of determining guilty when no guilt was there?
Nobody I know wants to do jury duty more than once. Everyone I know does it when called because it’s one of those things we take to heart. People may be at their very best trying to find truth in a room where it is so elusive.
Last week was the first time I wasn’t booted out of the jury pool before a trial began. I was selected to do my citizenly duty. It appears two of us heard the same story, and 10 of us heard something completely different. I believe we were all amazed when it wasn’t a slam dunk.
Distressed and exhausted by a full day of polite bickering, I came face to face with the fact that I don’t want to sit in judgment of anybody ever again. I hated to make a call which would change directions of a life for the better or the worse. Good thing I’m not a parent.
I came home and listened to an evening of the Democratic Convention about how life is about to change. But I kept thinking about the steno pads, old as time, filled with the notes of how we judge each other week after week. I believe in the process.
But I didn’t feel pleasure in accomplishing my citizenly duty. I couldn’t give myself an “atta girl.” I felt fear of doing it wrong. I don’t want to do it again. And I guess I am glad all those notes are lost in ash.
Look for “What Little I Know Now,” a collection of Linda B. Myers’ Sequim Gazette articles. Find it on Amazon, wherever the Rain Shadow Artisans market is appearing, and at Pacific Mist Bookstore.
