On Jury Duty and Double Manhattan
By Gene Lalor
Posted On September 28, 2005

Many Americans consider doing their duty and serving on a jury to be akin to something between having a root canal and passing a kidney stone. Having had the experience of both of those treats I can attest that it’s not nearly as painful. That said, it’s usually not much fun either. But the new system is much improved.

My most recent jury experience was virtually painless. Called to serve a mere three miles away from my home on Long Island, instead of having to make a dreaded thirty-five mile trek to another court in rush hour traffic, I felt blessed. Now, I know some people do that and more daily but I haven’t for many years and, as I enter my dotage, I didn’t look forward to that possibility at all. For one thing, the Long Island Expressway isn’t nicknamed the "BIG LIE" for nothing, nor is it known as “the world’s longest parking lot” for no reason. But, I digress.

In the olden days of a quarter century ago, jury duty out in the boondocks of Long Island was a trial in more ways than one--until Suffolk County woke up and ended the practice of summoning hundreds of hapless citizens at a clip, crowding them into the dingy, dirty, dungeon-y atmosphere of its Griffing Avenue Central Jurors Room in Riverhead, and virtually imprisoning them for a full two weeks. I had the advantage back then of being paid in full for the fortnight by my employer; many didn’t and just had to slog through the days on the less-than-magnificent fifteen dollar a day stipend they were allotted by the County. So much for contented juries.

Back then, there was an almost convivial atmosphere as you sometimes met people you knew and, even if you didn’t, the two-hundred-capacity central juror room lent itself to a degree of intimacy with people thrust together in joint misery and commiseration. Some completed reading novels, some did paperwork, some merely slept. The two hour lunches didn’t hurt either, occasionally spent in nearby pubs as a few potential jurors tried to drown their misery in a few pints.

“Potential jurors” is key here since the chances of getting through voir dire–you did learn nifty terms like that (aka juror interviews) and actually making it onto a sitting jury were minimal. One veteran jury-going colleague swore, outrageously, that he would just say during voir dire that he hated “spics, niggers, and kikes” and thus escape being among the chosen few. I don’t know if he actually did that but I do know he went every two years for decades and was never actually on a jury.

I've had the fortune or misfortune of “making it” onto two juries, and almost “making it” onto another until I was disqualified because I knew the judge and had worked on his campaign for Suffolk County Chief Executive. In another instance, I was chosen to help decide the guilt or innocence of an alleged white collar executive who “copped a plea” a day after the jury was empaneled. This was long before Enron and Tyco so I’d guess he was sentenced to probation and forced to give back a pittance of what he had allegedly had stolen. (Then again, a recent Superintendent of Schools in Roslyn, Long Island stole some eleven million dollars, copped a plea, and will be sentenced to a mere four to twelve years and have to pay back less than two million dollars. I guess crime still pays in some venues.)


The one jury I was on that did reach a verdict--something I discovered was something of a rarity and which made a juror something of an exception--was actually interesting. The case involved a young Hispanic, caught burglarizing a home. His attorney posed what I trust is a novel defense: His client was stupid, or so it was contended. Granted, he was apprehended leaving the house with a VCR and miscellaneous jewelry but, said the attorney--the client didn’t testify on his own behalf--the poor schlep believed he was at a friend’s home and was just helping him move a few things before the friend vacated the premises. The trial lasted two days and the judge then gave us his instructions, his last admonition being that, above all, we must follow the law in arriving at our decision. We were ushered into the deliberating room. The door had barely closed when a male juror turned to the rest of us and said, “Look, let’s forget the law right now.” We sensed we were in for a long afternoon, but it was worse than that.


The jury foreman (who, by the way, gains that title simply by being the first juror chosen) asked for a straight up-or-down vote since the defense was laughable and the matter seemed pretty cut and dried. For eleven of us it was. For one it wasn’t. It so happened that this was a Friday afternoon and none of us wanted to spend the whole afternoon deliberating and arguing for sanity from the one dissident, but it turned out we did, and then some. It got to 4:30 and the foreman had to inform the judge that we weren’t unanimous, thinking we would have to come back Monday and finish up. We were wrong. The judge, a bit miffed but polite, told us we would be sequestered and then continue our work on Saturday morning. The dissident juror, now a pariah, didn’t seem to mind that prospect.

The bailiff called each of our homes to inform next of kin that we wouldn’t be going home that night. He spoke to my wife and so informed her and she, of course, thought it was a joke and demanded her husband be put on the phone. The bailiff reassured her it wasn’t a joke. We were escorted to a CVS to purchase tooth brushes, then to a diner where we had our choice of eats and offered a single adult beverage; I chose a double manhattan. We were delivered to a budget motel where we were paired up by gender and, coincidentally and fortuitously, I was paired with a guy who turned out to be a fellow refugee from my old South Bronx neighborhood--from a few blocks away, in fact--and we spent the night reminiscing about the good old days. The next day we breakfasted and re-convened, all but threatened the pariah juror with bodily harm unless he came to his senses, shortly reached a unanimous guilty verdict, and were discharged from our jury service with the gratitude of the judge.

But, times have radically changed in the New York State court system, and for the better. Those summoned for duty now call in on a nightly basis to see if our services are needed and must only show up if they were. I was postponed three days before my number came up. After the security check, I discovered the old Central Jury Room was much more palatable–brighter, air-conditioned, with a twenty-seven inch television (tuned, oddly, I thought, to news channels), two computers to check e-mail and timed for fifteen minutes to deter computer hogs, reading material, potted plants, and attractive prints on the walls. We were first treated to a brief brainwashing by Diane Sawyer on the T V, who tried to convince us of the joys of jury duty, and then the first panel of twenty were called and marched out to places unknown. Then, more waiting until a hundred and five minute lunch break, then more waiting.

My jury stint then came to an abrupt end. A secretary announced that she had good news for us and a guy in the back yelled out, “We can go home?” to a few chuckles. The secretary said there were no more lawyers in the building, so we could go home–for six years. She said we shown up, had served, and had done our duty. The initial panel of twenty was all they needed.

God is good.

Gene Lalor is a retired teacher living in Long Island.

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