Doing Your Civic Duty: Why It Matters

The dreaded envelope from a state or federal court. Addressed to you. You wrack your brain to figure out how many parking tickets you ignored or who might want to sue you. You open the envelope. It’s the reviled jury summons.

“Oh darn!” you exclaim (or some variation not suitable for public ears). “I can’t serve on a jury,” you think. “My boss will flip out, who will take care of the kids? How can I get out of it?”

The Sixth and Seventh amendments to the United States Constitution guarantee the right of criminal or civil defendants to, among other things, a speedy trial, and adjudication by a jury of ones’ peers. And in order to ensure that this right is upheld, the United States Government mandates that all citizens over the age of eighteen have a civic duty to participate in jury duty. Fulfillment of a civic duty is one of the cornerstones of our democracy. When we serve on a jury, we are upholding the democratic values governed by our constitution and The Bill of Rights.

“Well, I just won’t show up,” you might say. “What can they really do?” In Virginia, the court can issue a “show cause” order that gets you escorted by a deputy sheriff before the judge to explain your case. Maybe you have a sympathetic judge? Or maybe you have a judge who is fed up with folks missing jury duty and not only issues a “show cause,” but also levies a $1,000 fine and/or jail time. Or maybe all three.

While it may be tempting to try and “beat” the game and fill out the form hoping to get out of your duty, the effort may not be worth it.

There are legitimate reasons to request to be excused from jury duty. Perhaps you have a medical reason, perhaps a family member is in hospice, and jury service would cause undue hardship. Student status can potentially get you excused, and if you’re defending our country overseas in the military, you’re excused. And once you’re 73, you never have to serve again. Along with senior discounts at the movies, another perk of getting older.

This year I was summoned to jury duty in the City of Richmond for the June 2024 term. I’ve been summoned before, but never made it out of the jury room. I’m a paralegal, and an almost certain “get out of jury duty free” card is being in the legal profession. I’ve always wanted to be on a jury, but never thought I’d get the chance.

My scheduled days were the four Thursdays of the month. On Wednesday evenings, I dialed the jury hotline and listened for the list of jurors due to report. My lucky day came Thursday June 20^th. I notified my boss, and showed up to the jury room at 8:00 a.m. I was sure I’d be in the office by 11 a.m., so I wasn’t too worried about the emails piling up, the pile of medical records I had to review, and whether there was a court deadline in one of my cases. As we waited in the moldy, smelly jury room, the joking began, “maybe I’ll say that I’m narcoleptic and am prone to snoring,” or “I’ll tell them I’m a prostitute and didn’t get much sleep the night before.”

But that morning, of the 50 potential jurors summoned, only twenty-three of us reported for duty. Only three jurors were excused that day: one had a hearing problem, another had been a victim of a crime, and the third stated they could not be impartial in matters involving firearms. The jury clerk groaned. Because that meant she would have to prepare 27 “show cause” orders that afternoon to be signed by a judge.

I was seated for a criminal trial. The defendant was a 19-year-old young man with a charge longer than his life on earth – Possession or transportation of a firearm, ammunition, stun weapon, explosive, or concealed weapon by a person under 29 who has been previously adjudicated as a minor, which would be a felony if committed by an adult. A mouthful. Essentially possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Our only task that day was to determine whether the defendant possessed a firearm on the date in question.

On a cold snowy day in the City of Richmond, six young men huddled in a circle at an apartment complex notorious for gang activity allegedly filming a video for a rap concert that night. Unbeknownst to them, they were being surveilled. We watched almost an hour of pretty boring video. One of the young men eventually walks to a car and opens the front driver’s door. The officer on the witness stand pointed out what “appeared to be” a weapon in the waist band of his pants. On cross-examination, she admitted that even with binoculars, she couldn’t be certain it was a weapon. Her uncertainty that day is why she didn’t approach the group during the several hours she was parked in the lot just feet away.

Eventually the group loaded into the car: The driver, a front seat passenger, and 3 back seat passengers. The car rolled a few feet and stopped to pick up our defendant. The fourth back seat passenger.

As they approached the concert venue, the car pulled over. An “obvious” but unmarked police car approached in the opposite direction and stopped. The right front seat passenger got out of the car and fired a weapon at an officer who shot back. Thankfully no one was hurt. But all six vehicle occupants fled in opposite directions.

A search of the car found the gun that had been fired in the front passenger seat, and three firearms under the mat covering the spare tire in the trunk. A couple of the young men were immediately arrested. The rest managed to elude the police for varying degrees of time. A police helicopter flew overhead using GPS to help the ground officers locate the suspects. Our defendant was found hiding in a crawl space under a porch by a K9 unit. He did not resist arrest, and willingly provided a statement to the police without requesting an attorney.

The prosecutor told the jury it was well known that the young men were headed to a rap concert that evening at which there would be violence if a rival gang showed up. He mentioned a ton of flyers advertising the concert, and numerous Instagram posts and texts with actual threats of violence. He showed a photograph of the defendant appearing to hold a firearm. The photo was undated, the sun was shining, the grass was green. It was clearly not a winter day. The prosecutor never introduced a copy of the flyer that “was everywhere,” and we did not see any texts. We saw some Instagram posts on a couple of accounts purporting to belong to defendant. “You simply must find the defendant guilty,” he implored.

The two young female public defenders asked the jury to find just one instance in all the evidence showing defendant in possession of a gun on that day.

I was elected jury foreperson. After a very long day –it was 9:00 p.m. when the judge gave us our instructions – the jurors were restless, tired, hungry, and one young woman worried about who was taking care of her six-year-old daughter. But we had a young man’s future in our hands. Would he walk away with the family who had been in the courtroom the entire day-after having been held without bond for six months-or would he spend five years in prison?

The judge was clear. The standard was “beyond a reasonable doubt.” We were to consider only the evidence, and follow the jury instructions provided to us in writing. We went one-by-one through the 10 instructions working our way towards our verdict. By law we had to start with the presumption of innocence. After we debated the first five instructions, I called for a vote. We were 10-2 in favor of acquittal. The two wavering jurors had lots of feelings. “But what if find him not guilty and he goes out and shoots someone?” Or “at some point in that car ride they had to have discussed the weapons, he had to have known they were there, right?”

We weren’t in the car, we didn’t have privy to the conversation unfolding, and we couldn’t guess what defendant did or did not know.

Instruction No. 6 tripped us up. We had to prove each and every element of the charge – (1) possession of a firearm, (2) possession of drugs, (3) possession of drugs with intent to distribute, and (4) eluding the police.

“Aha!” one of the two yelled out. “He ran from the police.” But he didn’t possess a gun or drugs when he was found. Our instruction was to prove each and every element beyond a reasonable doubt. We had an “and” to work with not an “or.” Conjunctions matter. And the instruction was clear “probability does not rise to the level of beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Did the defendant have possession of a weapon at some point that day? Maybe? Did the defendant have knowledge of either the weapon found in the passenger seat or the three found in the trunk? Probably.

The bailiff interrupted our deliberations and asked if we wanted pizza. We did not. We had just taken our second vote. It was unanimous. We were ready to render our verdict.

You could have heard a pin drop. Defendant held his head in his hands, his public defenders with their hands on his shoulders. A woman, presumably his mother, cried softly.

The judge thanked the jury for their service and asked me as foreperson whether our verdict had been unanimous. “Yes, your honor,” I replied.

And she read “we the jury find the defendant . . . not guilty.”

The experience shook us. We hung out in the jury room for a few minutes after we were excused just staring blankly. The conflicts between our emotions and the facts were messy. One juror asked if we all wanted to get together sometime in the future. We did not.

It is a heavy burden to hold someone’s future in your hands. And it is an enormous privilege to be able to do so. And that’s why fulfilling our civic duty matters. If it were your life on the line, your future, your business, or your livelihood, wouldn’t you hope that your fate wasn’t decided by “maybe,” or “probably?” Wouldn’t you want your jurors to care about their obligation, not shirk it?Wouldn’t you want to know your peers were following the evidence, not preconceived notions or emotions?

I believe beyond a reasonable doubt that you would.

If you have questions about this article, or about jury duty in general, contact Julie Turner ([email protected]) at 804-377-1274 or Steve Setliff ([email protected]) at 804-377-1261.