Today’s find: Summoned

I kept thinking, surely with wind chills below zero…and a nice little coat of ice and snow on the ground…the county courts will call off Jury Duty for all those summoned this week…

Think again.

When I dialed into the courthouse early Tuesday morning, the recorded message was the same as it had been the evening before: “If your Juror Badge number is 455 or higher, you need not report…”

Alas, at #275, MY badge-number happened to be well within the margin of error, so there’d be no easy excusal for me.

Then, after making the winter-fraught trek to Clayton, I sat in the Juror Assembly Room wondering what the odds were that my name (among the hundreds there gathered) would be called for impaneling. I didn’t have to wait long – the Division 6 Bailiff handed me Paddle #15, a mere quarter of the way through his list of 60 citizens to be ushered up to the Courtroom on the third floor.

Well, thought I, there’s still one trump card I could play in an effort to make mine a relatively short stay in the courthouse: I’ll just mention my decade-long volunteer work on behalf of Kairos Prison Ministry.

With this Exit Strategy in mind, I settled in – alongside 59 citizen-strangers in Judge Borbonus’ courtroom – and waited for voir dire to begin. The judge got things underway by reading the charges aloud to all those assembled, followed by a few preliminary instructions for the potential jurors.

I’m not sure there was an audible gasp among us citizen-strangers at that point, but there definitely was when the prosecutor provided additional details about the acts alleged. This was no property dispute or simple tortious claim: we were being asked to sit in judgment over a series of heinous crimes.

Unspeakable acts, every one of them. So not surprisingly, they caused several of my courtroom companions to speak in response: “Guilty!” they said, before even a single shred of evidence had been presented. And as I heard them speak, something in my heart began to change. I realized how very difficult it was going to be for the Accused to be given the benefit of the doubt – an essential element for him to receive a fair trial.

Perhaps this right of his outweighs my own inconvenience, I began to think. Perhaps my duties as a citizen might in fact come at a cost to me.

And so stirred (if not to say troubled) by such thoughts, I resolved to keep my trump card to myself. I would not volunteer information about my connection to prison ministry, but only respond honestly and willingly if asked.

Alas, I was NOT asked – and so I served as Juror #2, enduring (along with 13 others) a day-and-a half of often-brutal testimony. And in the end, we returned what I affirmed to be a just verdict – “Guilty,” on each of the five counts alleged. (“Each” being in my view the most important word here: there was no piling on. We deliberated over every count, discussing the relative weight of the evidence behind every charge.)

Afterwards, I realized that despite my initial reluctance, I was grateful for the experience of Jury Duty. And this is true, despite the obvious pain involved. Every single person there was traumatized by these sins-laid-bare – the victims, their family members and friends, the other witnesses, the attorneys, the judge, the jurors, the accused. All were traumatized.

And all are children of God, I came to see. All of us, deeply in need of God’s healing.

It’s a broken world, no doubt. Not that much different, perhaps, than the world experienced by the prophet Jonah, as we hear recounted in scripture at Mass today. Little wonder, then, that it took a couple of tries to convince Jonah to get involved with setting things right:

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time…”

Jonah was summoned, you might say, just as I was this week. And in the end, we both found a measure of faith that God’s grace can in fact prevail – even when every human effort fails.

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS