by Virgil Teague

Created on: November 13, 2008

THE RELUCTANT FOREMAN

Here's what happens in America if you buy a home, vote regularly and pay your taxes: one day you get a summons in the mail.

I'm always suspicious of official-looking envelopes...or used to be until most of them turned out to be from Publishers' Clearing House or a local car dealership. Still, I look at them carefully, since I once got an official-looking envelope from the IRS that had a sizeable check in it - and it was made out to me.

But this one was different: it was a demand that I call a toll-free telephone number each evening after five to learn when I was to report for jury duty.

Three weeks later, I found myself in a room with forty other people, all somewhat disgruntled by the interruption of their regular routines. Some were nicely-dressed; some could use improvement in style. Some looked as if they'd just crawled out of bed; others were coiffed and neat.

There was free coffee, and I'd been told we were going to be repaid for the parking fees we'd coughed up, so I began to think it wasn't a bad deal after all. Maybe I wouldn't even be selected; I'd never been on a jury before, and surely the judge would want experienced people instead of run-of-the-
mill folks like me.

Wrong.

Apparently this uniquely American experience dictates just the opposite: it demands the broadest brush in selection of a peer group about to sit in judgment of its fellow-citizens.

A few of the prospective jurors were dismissed "for cause," which is the right of each side of the argument. I never did learn what exactly that cause was or I'd have claimed it and been on my way. I blame my lack of experience.

The selection process - called "voir dire," a French term for "speak the truth" - didn't take long. Soon we'd been whittled down to eight jurists and the rest of the prospects were allowed to return to life as they know it.

I'd heard the phrase "Don't make a Federal case of it," but apparently it's not in vogue in this Western District of Federal Court, because we were about to hear arguments in precisely that: a federal case brought by a merchant who felt he'd been treated badly by his insurance company after a fire that wiped out one of his locations and cost him a ton of inventory. It was a Federal case because the merchant dealt with overseas suppliers, often sending large lumps of U.S. dollars overseas.

It wasn't as exciting as I thought it might be, this jury stuff. Mostly, the attorneys did a lot of talking - both highly partisan when it came to their side

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