Saratoga News

Columns

Guilty? Not the most important question

By Dick Sparrer

Guilty, or not guilty? That was the question the judge posed to us after the defense had rested its case. But weeks before that I had faced another, more fundamental question: How the heck was I going to get out of jury duty?

Oh, come on--it's a question we all ask ourselves when that envelope shows up in the mail saying, "We want you!"

Having used my one-time-only postponement option, I was pretty much stuck. Barring some freak of nature, like maybe a Bay Area blizzard or a rare volcanic eruption on Mt. Hamilton, I was going to have to do my civic duty (heck, where's a little 5.5 earthquake when you need one!).

So there I was that Monday, sitting in the jury assembly room at the Superior Court building in downtown San Jose with a few hundred other people just like me, all of us hoping to hear the announcement: "Jurors in [insert the number of your panel here] are excused; thank you for your service."

There would be no such announcement, at least not for Panel 5--my panel. Instead, we all sat there quietly, the only sounds heard were those of book and newspaper pages turning. Heads bobbed as people dozed from the boredom, and others stared blankly out the windows rehearsing in their minds the reasons they would offer to the judges for why they couldn't serve.

Suddenly, the silence of the room was broken by a loud growl, and everyone turned to look for the beast who had invaded the assembly room. As it turns out, the "beast" was only a heavy-set man with his head tilted back and his mouth wide open, snoring like a grizzly bear--and providing a few laughs for we jurors to break up an otherwise monotonous day.

"Oh, no!" I thought to myself. "I just woke up. Was I snoring, too? Was my mouth hanging wide open? Would anyone tell me if it was? Would I want to know? Was I the object of everyone's snickers?"

"Snickers?" I said, still talking silently to myself. "That reminds me ... I missed lunch. Is there a vending machine in the room? Do I have any cash?"

I shook my head to clear it of all of those idle thoughts so I could focus on my real purpose--thinking of a reason why I couldn't serve. That thought was broken by the broadcast, "Panel 5, please report to Judge So-and-So in courtroom ... "

That was it. We were on our way.

But at least I had my excuse. I would tell the judge, "I can't possibly serve. I'm much too valuable at work. The company can't survive without me, not even for a few days. Why, the whole newspaper could collapse!"

That thought was lost, though, when I almost did create a pretty good reason not to serve. After walking down a flight of stairs, then up three more flights to get to the courtroom, I tripped one step short of the third floor. I fell flat on my face, smacked my head into the side of the open door and jammed my wrist into the floor in an effort to break my fall.

As I collected my cell phone, my glasses and myself, my fellow jurors stopped to make sure I was OK. "Oh, I'm fine," I said. "Just a little clumsy." Inside, my muscles were screaming in pain but I was too embarrassed to admit it, and I jumped to my feet as quickly as my 57-year-old legs would allow.

Later that night, looking for a little sympathy, I told my boys what had happened. The youngest consoled me by saying, "Dad, at your age don't you think you should skip the stairs and take the elevator?"

Well, at least Kevin was more thoughtful than his older brother, Mike. Instead of asking if I was OK, he just said, "I hope nobody saw you!"

"Uh, I was walking with about 50 other jurors, so, yeah, a lot of people saw me," I explained. "Would you have preferred I'd been alone, laying there bleeding in the stairwell?"

"Well, maybe not bleeding," he said.

Thanks a lot, I thought. But at that point I had more on my mind than coldhearted sons.

Earlier in the day I had hauled my battered body into the courtroom and realized three things very quickly--my injuries were not going to get me out of jury duty, neither was my feeble excuse about being so valuable to the newspaper (since the judge indicated right away that work would not be a valid reason for skipping jury service).

And the third thing? It was pretty clear that I would be going into a trial as one of 12 members of a jury.

So I served, and it was actually very interesting to see the legal system in action and realize that it's not exactly like what we see on Law and Order.

I guess the worst thing about the entire experience came after my service had come to an end. The company had survived, the building did not collapse and the newspaper had been published without me.

Guess I'm not quite as valuable as I thought I was. Go figure!