My first few days as full-time custodian last summer reminded me of exactly why I decided to go to college. It was a combination of things that did it, really: the actual cleaning, yes, but more so the cattiness among the custodians, the boss’s air of superiority, and even the way the kids looked at me like it was explicitly in my job description to wipe their fecal matter off the walls. But I had received my official jury duty summons letter from the county months before, and had informed my boss that I had been called to a possible two-week term of civic duty. At that point, it was all I could do to pray that I would be picked, rather than be sentenced to scraping gum off desks, cleaning floor-to-ceiling Venetian blinds, and cleaning up after classroom pets. I didn’t consider that my passion for social justice would cause problems in a courtroom.
I was the opposite of most other candidates, who found it a burden to be called away from work or their families. During selection, they looked for any excuse to show bias toward the lawyers, the parties involved in the case, or the nature of the accident that was up for judgment. I, however, avoided any response to the preliminary questions that would jeopardize my chance of showing up at the courthouse every day for the next two weeks. I practically willed myself to be selected; my ultimate dream was to be sequestered for the entire summer.
The best I could get was a small, two-day civil case. Still, it was something, and I looked forward to a brilliant and unique educational experience.
Michelle was a 20-something-year-old woman who lived with her mother in a nearby town. She claimed she was injured on a city bus because of the driver’s recklessness, and was only asking for the bus company to pay her medical bills and a small amount of pain-and-suffering. Her mother was the only other person on the bus at the time of the alleged incident, and apparently this bus was the only bus left in America with no video camera on board.
Michelle and her mother were both “slow” – that’s the best way I can describe it. Had they had the means or awareness to get evaluated, they probably could have been diagnosed with some formal type of mental retardation.
Not only did these people have no jobs and no money, they also did not have a case. After two years of waiting, they finally got to testify about Michelle being hurt on the bus. Because of their mental capacities, the time lapse, and the amount of coaching they had probably received, it was easy to understand how they could mix up their stories. They just didn’t have a chance against the slick-talking bus driver. The same simple questions, repeated a thousand times, were repeatedly answered, “I don’t remember.” Despite definite responses given on their depositions months earlier, the prosecutor made them jumble and twist their stories around until I’m sure they couldn’t understand that their case was being severely worn down.
The verdict was plain and simple: The bus driver was not guilty. While it was plausible that Michelle probably had received some type of injury sometime (and as a result, substantial medical bills), negligent driving was not the cause. She and her mother would not receive any money.
But during the deliberation, most people had a hard time ignoring the knot in their gut — the one that kind of feels like a conscience — despite the strict order to bar any personal feelings from the decision-making. It was obvious that every person took their role seriously; it was important to be consistent with the law that has been solidified in our country for so long. But one woman summed up what all of us in that jury room were probably thinking, despite the evidence laid out for us: “I just feel like something happened on that bus.”
Maybe it was Michelle’s untamed hair, acne-ridden face, or Goodwill-bought clothes that did it for me. Maybe it was the nearly inaudible way both Michelle and her mother spoke. Maybe it was the way their eyes always gazed downward, showing an utter lack of self confidence, that convinced me that the suit wasn’t a charade to extort money from a bus company. Or, maybe it was the fact that I thought the bus driver was a sleazebag, and I wanted to make him pay.
But what had struck me most about Michelle and her mother was the reason they had been on that bus in the first place: for fun. It was one of the only things they articulated clearly and consistently during their testimony. A lot of people say that riding the bus is an “experience,” mostly for the variety of characters they encounter, but there is a difference between riding the bus for enjoyment and saying that riding the bus, when you have to do it, is fun. Nobody rides the bus specifically for their afternoon entertainment, except for “simple people” (as their attorney called them) like Michelle and her mother, who really had nowhere else to go.
I’m not stupid. I know that a legal system can’t be driven by sympathy; there isn’t enough money to go around for that. I know that some people lie through their teeth just to get money, and we can’t let feelings overtake the systematic approach to justice. But while I’m all for systems and organization and being logical, my stomach rarely lies. I still wonder about Michelle and her mother, which usually ends up bringing back that same sick feeling. I wonder, too, how I could feel so disgusting for doing the right thing; but somehow, on that day last summer, in an atmosphere that should embody all that is fair in the world, doing the “right” thing felt really, really wrong.
*Written in January/February 2007
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