Acting On Convictions

Clad in a necktie for the first time in about two years, I entered the jury lounge along with 200 other people. Our first day of jury duty was about to begin. I was glad to see that the room was comfortable and spacious, for I guessed that I would have plenty of time on my hands for the next two weeks. I brought a briefcase full of books, letters, unmended clothes, needles and thread, and my lunch.

I was to be paid $30 a day for serving. That seemed like a small fortune compared with $13.23 per day, my salary at Sojourners.

As the jury officer called the roll, I discovered that my identity would change from Dan Goering to Number 206 while I was here. I also discovered, by watching the movie shown to prospective jurors, that in order to be a good juror one has to be "impartial and fair" and decide cases solely on the basis of the evidence. I felt like a fish out of water and wondered whether I could possibly be "impartial" or "fair" as defined by the U.S. judicial system. I have such a low opinion of this country's prisons that I wanted to avoid, if possible, doing anything to put someone there. There was, I figured, no way I would be chosen to serve on a jury.

Then the waiting started. As I was mending the first of six shirts I had lined up for the week, I heard a series of numbers coming from the loudspeaker, "...two-oh-six." I was chosen for the first jury panel of the day.

Fifty of us marched down the hall and filed into the courtroom. In front of the bench several people were seated. Two men in stylish three-piece suits were seated at tables facing the bench. I guessed that these were the attorneys. Another well-dressed man began calling the roll of jurors: the warden, no doubt. An impeccably clad woman was recording every word. The clerk, I surmised.

Seated next to one of the attorneys was an unkempt man in a tie-dyed T-shirt. I was certain that he was the defendant and was struck by the contrast between him and everyone else in the room, including the jurors, his panel of "peers." He was obviously from a lower stratum of society than the rest of us. Be impartial? Keep feelings out of it? I found my heart going out to him. If he did commit the crime of which he'd been accused, what drove him to it? What would best serve his needs? I wondered if the judge was qualified to sentence him. I knew I wasn't. I told the judge my reservations, and he excused me from serving on that jury.

I came back to the jury lounge and started reading. Two women were talking within earshot of my chair. I heard one of them say, "He just got excused." I looked up to enter into the conversation. The other woman looked at me and said, "I know why--because you sew!" Laughter came from all over the room. At that point I felt very much in the world but not of it. I hadn't given much thought to how strange it is for a man to sew clothes in public in this culture. But, we are, after all, a peculiar people.

The next day I was called on another jury panel. One of the preliminary questions asked by the judge was whether any of us on the panel or any of the members of our families had been accused of a crime, witnessed a crime, or been the victim of a crime within the last 10 years. I was one of many jurors who responded yes to this question the second day. The judge proceeded to call us up to the bench one by one for further questioning, after turning on a noise machine that filled the room with radio-like static so that no one could overhear the conversation except those surrounding the bench. I approached the bench and had the following conversation with the judge, a nice, grandfatherly type:

Judge: Number 206, Mr...uh...Goering, is that right?

Me: Yes. Well, I belong to this intentional community called Sojourners. We live together like a family. In the past few years some of us have been arrested for blocking the entrance to a hotel during a nuclear arms trade fair held there, for sitting down in a White House tour line, and for illegally occupying a house in our neighborhood so speculators couldn't get it. Our houses have been burgled on several occasions, batteries have been stolen out of our cars, things like that.

Judge: Given the fact that you are part of a group that practices civil disobedience, do you think you could be impartial towards the government in this case?

Me: No, I don't think so.

In the days that followed, I was excused from 14 juries and served on none. I was excused for my views on the U.S. penal system. I was excused for viewing alleged drug dealers and users as victims of the system. I was excused for being against handguns. I read eight books and mended several shirts. One of the men who needed some sewing done asked me if I took in work. I turned him down. After all, I was already making $30 a day.

After two weeks, I was even more convinced than I had been before my jury service that my values were very different from those of U.S. culture. People of power and influence have one set of eyes to view those who are outside of the system's privileges and break its laws; my faith is teaching me to see things through the eyes of those who are the system's victims. I left my jury duty very thankful to be a member of a community which attempts to live in such a way as to offer the healing, forgiving love of Christ to people. Only that love can remedy the ills that presently clog this nation's courts and fill its jails.

Dan Goering was on the editorial staff at Sojourners when this article appeared.