In a message dated 2/26/03 6:54:33 PM Central Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< First, re jury duty. It is incumbent upon people who can to take their
jury duty when
asked. I know the people in Mpls are busy working and taking care of their
families but
when we can’t take our turns, this results in the people from the suburbs
coming in to
decide on police brutality and shooting cases which they know nothing of.
They have never
had the experience to know that all police officers are not always
respectable and
responsible. A person is supposed to have a jury of his peers. >>
Jon sez: I hardily concur. I was called for duty this last June
for the first time in thirty years of so-called
adulthood. After ascertaining that the calender was a little light
(call ahead if you haven't already postponed)
I showed up for my two weeks of sitting around a lot.
Eventually twenty of us were called for selection in a felony
case. The fellow was charged with soliciting
underage girls. He allegedly worked them in the inner city.
As the potential jurors were interviewed by the prosecution and
defense ( a looong process ) it became more and more evident that
virtually no one that could eventually serve on that jury had any concept,
let alone experience, in the dynamics of city life. The man ready
for trial was black. Of the twenty potentials only two were non-white..
The only black person among us was a woman from Somalia who pretty
much said she tended to agree with
that which men told her to agree. The other person of darker than
beige was of East Indian roots and resided
in Edina.
On jury duty you wind up hanging with your fellows so much that
encompassing conversation seems to
become the norm (except for the guys with more than one cell phone,
them you never know). After slowly
sharing this and that it evolved that exactly three (3) among our
twenty lived inside the city limits. My two
citykins and I placed a bet on when the poor S.O.B. (alleged) looking
up at this wash of white who would
sit in judgement of him would cop a plea. I lost. The guy actually
gutted it out one more day.
I don't want to make fun of the crime this man was charged with.
If true, I believe it heinous. The fact
was though, the truth was never going to be freely weighed by a jury
of anything aproaching his peers. I'm a fifty+
man with deep Norsky roots who happened to grow up in the projects
and perhaps had a few more encounters
with the law than were appreciated. I was the closest thing the guy
had to a peer. Kinda sad.
Do your duty proudly Citykins,
Jon Gorder
Loring Park
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