Wheels of Justice: Jury Duty

A Courthouse Union of Folly and Vice

Everyone has been talking about threats to democracy lately. According to its sudden defenders, a lot of sensible things were actually a threat. Allowing free speech threatened democracy. Addressing vote fraud threatened democracy. Limiting aid to Ukraine now threatens democracy. I’m sure I’ve left a few things off the list.

But if you really want to know what threatens democracy, look no further than your nearest big-city courthouse. One need only spend a day in jury duty to know that the marriage of folly and vice has spawned a population of citizens who view America not as the land of opportunity, but as the land of opportunism.

I recently had jury duty, which is more akin to a community service sentence than a Jeffersonian rite of citizenship. My short experience there suggests that things are worse than democracy’s defenders think. Our threat may actually come from an enemy within—the litigious masses that drag our greatness down.

The downtown Atlanta courthouse puts some visuals to this theory. Outside, its drab surroundings are marked by the scenes of municipal blight. Inside, all sorts of lawsuits and trouble make their slow rounds on the wheels of modern justice.

The first thing one learns as a juror is that half of the day will be consumed with inefficiencies. When I arrived for duty, the courthouse was packed with potential jurists. After an 8:00 check-in, 10:30 arrived with jurors still planted in the plastic waiting-room chairs, but now armed with knowledge gained from Covid-related announcements.

Perhaps a few hoped for a spot on the notorious Young Slime Life (YSL) case— a showcase of the criminal lives of Atlanta’s celebrity rappers. As it turns out, that trial was temporarily adjourned when one of the defendants gave his associate, Young Thug, a Percocet in full view of the courtroom; so much for adjudicating thug life.

Up in the seventh floor courtroom, though, things wouldn’t be so wild. It would be the inglorious scene of a personal injury lawyer extracting cash from a crash on behalf of his able-bodied client.

First, a bit of a detour; driving around town, I often find myself behind public transit buses, which serve as mobile billboards for the personal injury industry. After crawling through rush hour, “One call, that’s all” is frequently stuck in my head—along with the white teeth of a perennially-midlife lawyer’s face.

You don’t have to be behind a bus to see this, though. At any point on the interstate, you can lock eyes with a personal injury attorney looming above on a billboard—arms crossed in a no-nonsense, confident stance. Long stretches of our interstate host billboard face-offs among the area’s best tort warriors.

There in the courtroom, I sat before one of these aspiring celebrities—a slick-looking guarantor of vehicular justice. He was flanked by his client and a three-person team, while the defendant sat beside her sole attorney. I was now held captive by the billboard people in a contest of a victim and his villain; against my honor, I would join the clowns of the low-brow world of injury litigation.

The case would presumably bring long-awaited justice to a traffic accident that occurred a head-scratching four years ago; so here sat our plaintiff—in his high-tops and chunky gold chain, still riding his bygone calamity in rock-star style.

Our judge, careful to cover all the administrative bases first, started us off by reviewing (again) pandemic protocols—still going strong at the court in 2023. Next, we learned about courtroom life, with harrowing news of a days-long jury schedule. Finally, she did something of a therapy talk; she told us to “be yourselves, and know you are accepted here”—an unexpected speech for a courtroom moment, but at least you can’t accuse her of being insensitive.

The plaintiff’s attorney then asked us a long series of questions to uncover our hidden sympathies and find those vulnerable to his lawyerly persuasion. This entailed nearly two hours of seated, minutia-gathering misery; and as it turns out, some people like such conversation.

If you ever wanted to know 36 people’s stories of vehicular drama, a jury panel is the place for you. Wondering if a juror ever gave a friend a ride to a doctor’s appointment? Curious if the school teacher ever rides a hybrid bike? Maybe you wonder if anyone around you has PTSD. Guess what? They do, or did, in our jury group.

You may also discover tort reformers hiding in the mix, which in our case, were woefully few. It’s no wonder—it’s frightful to break the stillness in a tort-affirming crowd, especially when the question is posed by the plaintiff’s attorney. This was perhaps both the best and the worst moment of the day; it was here that the stubborn voice of truth called my name.

The attorney had asked if anyone felt there were “too many lawsuits;” three of us raised our paddles to signal agreement. Later he asked if anyone would refuse to award damages, even if the plaintiff won the case. In a move that brought the puzzled stares of lawyer, judge and jury, I raised my paddle to signal my ungenerous stance.

However, the lawyer and judge didn’t just have stares; they had follow-up questions, too. When asked to explain my idiosyncratic response, I mustered what little oratory skills I could. My sweaty moment of truth decried ambulance chasing in totum with a nervously uttered, but clearly worded, reply.

We were eventually dismissed for a “lunch” in our concrete culinary desert, returning, still hungry, to learn our courthouse fate. As luck would have it, I was released, with several unpromising jurors; we could only surmise that our paddles had won the day.

Nobody wants a country without a path to securing justice; our founders softened our trials with a jury of peers. Yet, it’s doubtful the founders envisioned the exploding spoils of endless litigation—or the legion of scoundrels keeping it in demand.