“These goddamn nature puzzles. How the hell am I supposed to know which way a waterfall goes?”
Neil had met Jennifer Lord, of all things, on jury duty this past fall, not too long after he had started dating Sara.
Neil had wanted to be on a jury since he was a kid. He remembered Dad telling stories about his jury service around the dinner table and Neil had greatly enjoyed his jury service, even if it was only for two days and happened all too fast.
He had shown up at the courthouse on Monday morning and by the close of business Tuesday he and his new friend Jennifer were walking away from the cashier’s window with eighty dollars cash in their hands having survived jury selection, considering the evidence and sworn testimony and rendering a verdict.
Neil first noticed Jennifer when he walked into the jury lounge. She was sitting at a table working on one of the puzzles the county had thrown out for the amusement of potential jurors. Her hair was up and she was dressed modestly, but it was plain she was one of the most beautiful women Neil had ever seen. Thick black hair and, though she tried her best to hide it, she was stacked from here to Reno, too. Out of habit, he immediately noticed she was wearing, on the finger commonly reserved for such adornment, the type of ring commonly associated with marriage to another human being.
Neil, already going to hell because he was dating a high school senior at the age of 33, could see no harm in talking to a married woman. There was a time when he would have fled, but he had overcome the days when he was painfully shy around women and even came to realize that a lot of women didn’t object too strenuously when a cute, nice guy drummed up conversation.
Neil was not particularly interested in – nor particularly good at – puzzles, but since one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen was working one Neil suddenly found himself possessed of an urgent desire to resume his puzzle-solving career.
“Uh, hi,” Neil said standing at Jennifer’s table and having little idea what he was going say afterwards.
Jennifer Lord looked up. After a second, where she realized Neil was a handsome guy who didn’t appear to be a complete loser, she smiled.
“It would help,” Neil said. “If the puzzle weren’t upside down. I think. I don’t know.”
She looked at Neil and then down at the puzzle.
“You’re right, aren’t you?” she asked
Neil nodded and smiled.
“These goddamn nature puzzles. How the hell am I supposed to know which way a waterfall goes?”
“Well, water seldom falls up,” Neil said dryly. “It usually goes, you know, over the edge and down.”
To emphasize the direction water traditionally takes, Neil made a diving motion with his right hand.
“Thank you, Mr. Geography. Please sit down and help me.”
They introduced themselves. Jennifer wasn’t entirely sure why she asked Neil to sit down. She was married, more or less happily, to a man who exerted a fair degree of control over her so were she of a mind to have an affair, it would have been bothersome to arrange. She decided it was probably for the simple, instinctive and timeless reasons that any girl invites a guy to join him: she liked him.
“See, these are actually really easy,” Neil said breezily, as if he had a lot of experience with puzzles. He picked up several pieces authoritatively, as if he were a master detective inspecting a clue.
“See, you put one piece down, then look for another one that fits the one you just put down.”
Jennifer Lord threw up her hands as if she had intentionally been looking for pieces that didn’t fit.
Neil put a second piece next to the first piece. It didn’t fit. Nor did the third, fourth or fifth pieces. Neil was doing this, however, with a flourish and aplomb Jennifer found funny, so she laughed.
Neil then pursed his lips together and scattered the puzzle pieces over the table.
“Smooth, Neil. Real smooth.”
Neil shrugged dismissively, as if brushing aside a talent all the great ones have.
During a break, they walked outside into the hall and Jennifer made a phone call that Neil presumed was to her husband. To show that he, too, was taken, he fished his phone out of his pocket, pressed a couple of buttons and pretended to be talking to Sara. In reality, Sara was in class and Neil had actually activated the GPS function. Shortly after Jennifer had ended her call, Neil told his phone how much he loved it, deactivated the GPS function, and put the phone back in his pocket.
“Girlfriend?” Jennifer asked.
Neil nodded solemnly.
“My beloved appreciates a call from me from time to time, too.”
I actually activated the GPS function. But I wanted to let you know I was taken. I am not sure why.
That’s a lie. In my experience, married women are more likely to have an affair with a taken guy. Not that I’m looking for an affair. I really just want to think I am.
They returned to the jury assembly room and sat in the back together. A little after 11:00 the clerk announced that folks with badge numbers that fell within a certain range were to line up in the designated place. Neil’s number fell in that range and he was pleased to note Jennifer’s did, too.
(Two)
Neil was excited. He remembered sitting at the dinner table and listening to his dad talk about his jury service and he had excitedly called his dad and told him about his own summons. Dad was now old and unable to remember relating his tale of jury duty at the dinner table, but he was happy for his son nonetheless.
The bailiff met the lined up potential jurors, smiled and muttered something having a three-month civil trial waiting for them. Jennifer, less thrilled with her jury service than Neil, looked at Neil and made a face.
There were fifty potential jurors, obliging them to take several elevators up to the tenth floor.
Neil, Jennifer and several others entered an elevator that already had several people in it who had gotten on on the first floor, including one guy sitting in the corner on the floor doing some paperwork. There were 16 floors to the building and going to the very top often took a significant amount of time.
“Any potential jurors in here?” he asked.
Neil and a couple of others said yes.
“I would like to take this opportunity to remind all of you about the presumption of innocence enjoyed by everyone afforded a trial by jury.”
Neil laughed. So did Jennifer.
“What floor are you getting off on?” the guy asked suspiciously.
“That’s classified, sir” Neil said covertly. To emphasize his point, Neil reached over and covered the display showing the floor numbers with his hand. This earned Neil a fair amount of general laughter from the assemblage in the elevator.
“When we get there, though,” Neil said. “You can bet we’ll be dispensing our own special brand of justice. We’re the jurors your lawyer’s warned you about.”
The man laughed.
The bailiff escorted them into the courtroom, issuing instructions as to where they were to sit. The first 13 people, a group which included Jennifer, sat in the jury box. Neil noted that both the attorneys for the state and the defendant looked at them intently.
After they were all seated the judge introduced himself, the clerk and the attorneys. The clerk then made them take an oath swearing that the answers to the questions they were going to be asked concerning their qualifications to serve on a jury would be well and truly answered.
Neil counted. He was number nine in the line to get in the jury box.
Nine of these yahoos will have to be dismissed for me to make it.
Neil had done enough reading to know that at least nine would either beg their way off or be dismissed as a matter of course, so it was actually likely he would make it into the jury box.
He did. Five of the original jurors were dismissed even before the attorneys got their mitts on them. A queer hairdresser whined about being self-employed and losing money, which the judge didn’t buy, though he was later excused when he said he had members of the police department at clients.
“You’re bound and determined to get off this jury, aren’t you, sir?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Very well. Scoot. You’re gone.”
Neil had been seated after the first round of attorney challenges. The judge had then asked him, and the other lady who had been seated, a variety of questions regarding their ability to be impartial, make a decision and if they had an understanding of jury service. The final question was if Neil found himself as one of the litigants in this case would he feel comfortable having Neil on his jury?
Well, I am dating a girl who only recently reached the age of majority and the sight of juror #2 causes me to achieve and maintain a state of arousal usually associated with porn stars. However, as a professional baseball umpire I am accustomed to considering both sides of an issue before rendering an impartial decision in circumstances a lot more contentious than these, so yeah, I’d feel comfortable with me on the jury.
There were four more rounds of attorney challenges. Neil was almost as pleased to note that Jennifer made the cut as he was that he made the cut.
The jury was sworn in. Neil, who had long awaited this moment, rose and raised his right hand crisply like he was being sworn into the United States Senate, and, along with the other twelve, which included the alternate who would have no vote, or even sit in on deliberations unless one of the chosen twelve keeled over and died, swore they would well and truly try the case now pending before this court and render a true verdict according to the evidence given, so help them God.
Neil presumed this would be a fairly routine case. In fact, the judge, an older man who chose to draw attention away from his baldness with a nice beard rather than a comb-over, had said that unless the jury took its time deliberating, the whole case should be over tomorrow.
Still, though, Neil thrilled at everything, all but sporting wood when he was sworn in, being virtually on the edge of his seat as the clerk read the information accusing the defendant of “driving and/or being in actual physical control while under the influence of intoxicating liquor causing substantial bodily harm” – a Class B felony in the state Neil lived in – and raptly listening to opening statements.
Holy crap! Opening statements! Here we go…
The State led off since it was their obligation to prove the defendant had, in fact, driven while intoxicated and caused substantial bodily harm beyond a reasonable doubt. The attorney, who Neil felt probably wasn’t on the fast track to the DA’s job if he was trying this case, pointed out that the State would show the defendant was not only drunk at the time of the accident, but did, in fact, cause substantial bodily harm to someone, presumably to the person he hit.
The defense took a lot of the wind out of the sails right off the bat when counsel acknowledged his client had been drunk at the time of the accident and that the reason they were all gathered here today was those rascals in the DA’s office insistence that the incident had caused someone ‘substantial bodily harm’. Not surprisingly, defense counsel was confident that upon due consideration of the presented evidence, and utilizing their own good, common sense, the jury would find, like any sensible person would, that while his client was, indeed, plastered at the time of the accident, he did not, in fact, cause ‘substantial bodily harm’.
Neil wondered exactly what was meant by ‘substantial bodily harm’, but was confident the jury would be provided with a working definition before commencing deliberations.
It was mid-afternoon when the trial actually started, and besides opening statements, the State got three witnesses in, which also thrilled the hell out of Neil.
“Holy crap!” Neil thought while the first witness, the man who had been injured while driving the car hit by the defendant, discussed the accident and his injuries under oath.
“I’m listening to actual, sworn testimony! I better listen closely.”
Before being sent home for the night, the judge admonished them, as he had when they had left the courtroom for a break, not to “communicate amongst yourselves, or with any other person, any subject connected with the trial or read, watch or listen to any report of or commentary on the trial by any medium of information, including television, radio, newspapers or the Internet.”
Neil hadn’t noticed any members of the media at the trial, but privately agreed to embargo all interview requests until after a verdict had been rendered.
With that, the jury filed out into the hallway behind the courtroom and walked down to the jury room. Since both Jennifer and Neil had gone out of their way to run into each other on the way out, it was hardly a surprise they ended up walking their cars together.
“I thought the bailiff said we had a three-month civil trial waiting for us?” Jennifer asked as they walked to the elevator. “How come we ended up with a two-day trial?”
Neil laughed.
“We still get the complete jury experience though: a nerve-wracking jury selection process, live, sworn testimony, plus gut-wrenching deliberations. It’s just in a concentrated, two-day form.”
“Neil, his attorney said he did it. How gut-wrenching can this be?”
Jennifer shook her head, reached into her purse to get her car keys.
“See if your girlfriend can join my husband and I for dinner tomorrow. Assuming were not all emotionally spent by our gut-wrenching deliberations.”
“Uh, I’ll see. She might have homework or have to study for a test.”
“Oh, she’s going to the university,” Jennifer said, naturally, and mistakenly presuming Neil’s girlfriend was actually out of high school. “What’s she majoring in?”
“Actually, she’s still in high school. She might have to work on her spelling words or something. I’ll check.”
Jennifer laughed.
“You’re kidding,” she said as a matter of course. Neil was a funny guy, after all, and funny guys said funny things.
Neil shook his head.
“So she’s studying for a history test or memorizing the members of the Supreme Court?”
“Well, she is taking AP English and calculus.”
Jennifer, in a move Neil found highly erotic, took a step back and curled some of her long black hair behind an ear.
“You rascal. How old are you?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Really? I had figured 27 or so.”
“Bless you,” Neil said, making the sign of the cross and blessing Jennifer.
Jennifer did some quick mental calculations.
“Fifteen years. That’s not too bad. My husband is 12 years older than I am. Of course, I’m not twelve.”
Neil laughed.
“See if she’s free. We’ll have fun.”
Neil’s phone vibrated. He took it out and looked at it.
“Oh lookie here,” he said, showing Jennifer the display screen. “It’s my princess.”
“Gimme that,” Jennifer said, holding out her hand. “I’ll talk to her.”
Neil had been around the block enough to recognize an order when an order was being issued. He pressed the talk button and handed the phone to Jennifer.
“Hi, Sara? My name is Jennifer Lord. I have been sentenced to serving on a jury with your boyfriend Neil.”
“On a jury with him, or on his jury?”
The girl’s funny. I like her.
“With him, silly!”
“That’s a relief.”
Sara then assumed a formal, British air.
“How may I be of assistance, Ms. Lord.”
“Well, your man informed me that your, shall we say, ‘studies’ might prevent you from joining us, us includes my husband, for dinner tomorrow night. The judge insists our trial will be over by then.”
Sara, correctly interpreting that ‘studies’ meant she had gotten Neil to confess he was dating a girl still in high school, laughed.
“I can probably make it. Assuming I can get out of my babysitting gig.”
Jennifer pinched the bridge of her nose with a thumb and forefinger.
“Neil, your girlfriend, emphasis on the ‘girl’, has to babysit tomorrow.”
Neil laughed.
“No she doesn’t. She’s funnin’ you.”
“Well,” Jennifer said, continuing with Baby Sara. “We will be celebrating both the end of our arduous trial and our triumphant participation in our judicial process with drinks and dinner. Since it is plain you have yet to reach the age mandated by our great state for the consumption of a celebratory libation, my husband will buy you a glass of chocolate milk.”
Sara was laughing.
This woman is funny. I like her.
“Now, I understand that if you have a spelling test or something like that to study for…”
“LOL. No, I’ll be there.”
“Neil, she actually said ‘LOL’. She’s a talking text message.”
Neil was glad he and Sara were having dinner with Jennifer and her husband after the trial. Relieved too, because that meant he wouldn’t have to drum up some lame excuse to get together at a later date and he could enjoy the final day of the trial.
In fact, he was so excited at what may well be his last day as a juror he paid only scant attention to her.
Neil’s favorite witness was the police department’s toxicologist, a tall, white guy in his 50’s who in great, fairly interesting detail discussed his qualifications and the processes involved in both testing blood samples and in the testing required to ensure his contraption, which he said was really just a hi-tech oven, continued to meet the required specifications. The toxicologist, who testified in trials like this as a matter of course, seemed genuinely to enjoy sharing his knowledge by delivering sworn testimony in an authoritative, well-modulated voice.
The jury got the case in mid-afternoon. Neil, backed by strong female, labor (the stereo installer) and minority (the black guy) support, and the fact he’d been sitting at the head of the jury room’s table anyway, was elected foreman by acclamation.
He asked if there was anyone who thought the defendant was actually innocent of the DUI charge, which his own lawyer had admitted to on his behalf. No one did. All twelve were in agreement the defendant was drunk at the time of the accident.
Well, that was easy. Now, all we have to do is decide whether the accident caused substantial bodily harm.
The judge had provided a definition of substantial bodily harm in his instructions to the jury. Instruction number seven stating:
“Substantial bodily harm” means:
- Bodily injury which creates a substantial risk of death or which causes serious, permanent disfigurement or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ; OR
- Prolonged physical pain.
After some initial discussion, Neil found there was little support for any aspect of the first part of the definition. According to medical records entered into evidence and parts of Neil’s treasured sworn testimony, the victim had suffered a lacerated spleen and, possibly two broken ribs, though those hadn’t been well documented by anybody. He had spent some time in intensive care, which counsel for the State had claimed was itself a substantial risk of death, which the ladies, gentlemen and the oaf NASCAR fan of the jury didn’t buy at all. The spleen had healed itself in due course and the man’s own, personal physician had given him a more or less clean bill of health a couple of weeks after the accident. The gentleman was hale and hearty on the witness stand, was not disfigured and his spleen had healed splendidly and was, apparently, back to providing whatever services a healthy spleen provided the human body.
So that left the issue as to what, exactly, constituted prolonged physical pain and did the jury feel that the two or so weeks between the accident and the issuance of a clean bill of health constituted prolonged physical pain.
This involved discussion. A couple of times Neil had to step in and restore order. Once, when everybody wanted to talk at once, and another time when some members of the jury preferred to discuss whether or not there had been any civil action in this matter.
In the first instance Neil, with an air of authority that really turned Jennifer on, stepped in and said, please, one at a time (he had actually issued this ground rule immediately after being selected foreman), adding solemnly that everyone would be heard because both the defendant the people of their great state were entitled to nothing less. In the second instance, Neil reminded everyone they were obliged to consider only the evidence presented during the trial, and were not to concern themselves with what was not presented.
The first vote was 10-2 in favor of only a DUI conviction. It wasn’t known who the two were and Neil invited them to step forward in the spirit of a candid discussion, but no one did until one cute blonde lady asked what the victim’s role was in this. She was under the impression the victim had been the one suing the defendant. Someone at the other end of the table stepped in and clearly explained that the State had brought the charges against the defendant, Neil added the victim’s only role in this was as a witness providing sworn testimony.
“Oh,” the lady said. “I thought the victim was suing him. I change my vote then.”
Neil then called for another secret ballot and found it was unanimous in favor of convicting only on the DUI charge.
“Well, we have a 12-0 count in favor of only the DUI charge. I will go around the table and confirm this with each one of you.”
This was accomplished visually, with Neil making eye contact with each juror and each nodding yes. Jennifer threw in a smile with enough wattage to keep the lights on the Las Vegas Strip lit for a week.
Neil asked one last time if this was the verdict of everyone in the room and when no one objected, he checked the box on the verdict form signifying that the jury in the above-entitled matter finds the defendant guilty of DRIVING AND/OR BEING UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF INTOXICATING LIQUOR.
He then dated and signed the form. Neil’s signature, as distinctive as it was illegible, took up almost the entire width of the page. He then went into the hallway, ran into the clerk, who got the bailiff.
“Joe, we’ve reached a verdict.”
“Good.” He put his hand out and Neil put the verdict form and the instructions in the bailiff’s hands. He read the verdict form, probably more to make sure it was filled out correctly than because he cared what the actual verdict was, and gave it back to Neil.
“Go back inside. It will take some time to get everybody back in the courtroom. Tell the smokers they can go smoke. They’ll know where.”
It took about 20 minutes before the jury was lined up in the hallway, ready to enter the courtroom one last time.
The bailiff opened the door and told everyone to rise for the presence of the jury. As usual, Neil liked the fact everyone rose when he entered the courtroom.
“Have you selected a foreman?” the judge asked.
“Yes, your honor,” Neil said. He attempted to stand, but the judge motioned for him to stay seated.
“State your name, please, sir.”
“Neil Foster.”
“And has the jury reached a verdict?”
“We have, your honor.”
Joe the Bailiff came by and collected the verdict form and the instructions and took them to the judge. The judge looked over the verdict without emotion before handing it to the clerk.
The defendant stood and the clerk read the verdict. There was a pause after she said the words “intoxicating liquor” as everyone waited to hear if the words “causing substantial bodily harm” followed and it was a second before everyone realized they weren’t.
Neil looked at the two prosecutors. One shrugged and leaned to his left and mumbled something that Neil couldn’t hear despite being the closest juror to them. The defendant wept.
It wasn’t the Trial of the Century – complete with Neil, in his role as foreman, presiding over a media circus immediately after the verdict had been read – he had secretly been hoping for but fate, which it will do from time to time if you let it, had nonetheless provided a thoroughly satisfactory experience.