A Juror and a Christian, Part 1

I have just completed one of the most fascinating experiences of my life.  For the past four days, I have served on a trial jury for a criminal case in the Suffolk County Superior Court in Massachusetts.  I am going to blog about the experience because of the complexity of the case and the difficulty with which we (the jury) reached our conclusion, the personal tension I have felt in considering all the evidence, and the impact this experience has had (and will continue to have, I suspect) on my thinking about Jesus, the existence of a divine Being in general, and how the principle of justice relates to my Christian faith.

First, I will lay out the general order of events.  I showed up for jury duty at 8am on Monday morning and sat in the jury pool waiting room until about 11:30.  At that time, about 50 of us were called up to a courtroom on the 8th floor.  The jury selection process took two full hours, and I was selected as Juror #7.  After the jury was selected, we broke for lunch then heard opening statements from the lawyers before court adjourned for the day.

The story we heard during opening statements was, in a word, tragic.  The vast majority of the parties involved were all related to one another.  A feud developed in this extended family until the tensions erupted one night, resulting in a violent fight.  Four men ambushed two other men on the street late at night, at least one of the four saying, "Who wants to die tonight?"  Between them all, they were carrying a gun, a piece of wood (not a bat, but like a bat), and a metal loop-cap from a chain-link fence post.  One of the two men had his bashed in like a pinata and was in a coma for almost a month.  The other man was beaten but did not have serious injuries.  Other than these six men, there was only one other person present, a woman who had been walking with the two men when they were ambushed.  Approximately a month and a half after the incident (and after the grand jury hearing) the common-law wife of the man who was severely beaten received a call from one of the four men (and a second in the background) receiving threats of rape.

The man on trial was one of the four alleged men who had committed the crime and made the threatening phone call a month later.  There were 6 counts against him: 1) Assault with intent to murder Victim A; 2) Assault and battery with a dangerous weapon as a joint venture against Victim B; 3) Individual assault and battery with a dangerous weapon against Victim B; 4) Assault and batter with a dangerous weapon as a joint venturer against Victim A; 5) Individual assault and battery with a dangerous weapon against Victim A; 6) Intimidation of a Witness against the common-law wife of Victim A.

The work day was over by this time, so everybody went home.  We returned on Tuesday morning and heard all the witnesses for the prosecution.  It turns out that legal proceedings are agonizingly slow.  It took all day to hear testimony from 6 witnesses.  On Wednesday we heard the two defense witnesses and listened to closing arguments, which took us all the way to lunch.  After lunch, the judge then read us the charges, read the laws applicable to the charges, and the instructions to the jury pertaining to the charges.  While we were waiting to go back down to the courtroom after lunch, we asked the court officer escorting us how long he thought it would take for the judge to read us all the instructions.  He responded, "Oh, like two hours, probably.  There's six charges!"  At first we thought he was joking, so we all laughed as were lined up in the hallway.  But when he didn't laugh along, we realized that he was serious ... and he was.  It took a full two hours for the judge simply to read us all the instructions pertaining to the charges at hand.  So, once again, we all went home and returned on Thursday morning to start deliberation.  We deliberated for four animated hours before coming to a verdict on all 6 charges.

In this entire process, I found myself wrestling with some serious, serious questions.  Humanly speaking, how do we define justice?  How do I define it?  Now that the case is completed, has justice been done (to use the biblical terminology)?  And especially, how ought I as a Christian to think and act as a participant on a jury in the American system of justice?  Does being a Christian make a difference?

I feel that I need to tell this story mainly for my own sake; and if others benefit, so much the better.  I have spent a lot of time thinking about the concept of justice this past semester, and I am amazed how God allowed me to have this experience now, at its conclusion.  In the following posts, I'll talk about each particular day of the trial and record some of my mental processes and emotional reactions.  Finally, I'll talk about why this experience has affected me so much in terms of how I think about God and Jesus ... and why being both a juror and a Christian has mattered so much to me in this process.