The Tragic Comedy of Jury Duty

The true meaning of “a jury of your peers”

Four years into my legal career, I was called for jury duty in downtown Brooklyn. A young couple was on trial for possession of crack cocaine with intent to sell. The cops hadn’t actually found anyone selling anything; rather, the idea was that they possessed so much crack it was obviously not for personal use. I was confident I wouldn’t be chosen — the conventional wisdom is that lawyers never are, and I was working for a law enforcement agency to boot.

Spoiler alert: I was chosen.

During voir dire the prosecutor asked me if I liked dogs. I thought that was weird. “Of course,” I said. He followed up, “Could you be impartial in a case if something bad happened to a dog?” I responded that I could, but the questioning was going so fast and there were so many people looking at me that I didn’t realize it was a lie until after I said it.

It soon became clear why he asked. Based on a tip from a confidential informant that the couple was dealing drugs, the cops busted down their door at 2 a.m. Surprised to be confronted by three barking dogs, the cops shot them on sight. The defense attorneys pounced on this. They got a cop to admit on the stand that had they known about the dogs they would have used a stun gun, according to NYPD procedure, and not engaged in straight-up dog-murder. The defense message was clear: That’s a pretty lame confidential informant. Couldn’t even tell you that there were three dogs in the apartment?

Good point, I thought. I was definitely not into the dead dogs. Defense: 1. Prosecutors: 0.

I otherwise completely geeked out on the whole process because law school never actually teaches you what truly happens in a courtroom. When the defendants testified in their own defense I barely blinked. We were all on the edge of our seats.

We know from every true crime show that defendants usually plead the Fifth, and if they do we aren’t supposed to make any negative inferences. But jurors aren’t made of wood, and we wanted to hear what the couple had to say after their door had been busted down and their beloved dogs were killed.

The girlfriend said something along these lines: Look, I know my boyfriend is a lousy drug addict, but he’s not a dealer. If he were, would I still have to be working at Blockbuster video to pay for community college? Would I be sleeping on an air mattress? So yeah, he probably had some crack cocaine in the house — even though I thought he was just smoking pot — but this guy is not a businessman and not a dealer and I’m just a good kid just trying to get through community college and I can’t believe I am even sitting here.

After busting down the apartment door and murdering the dogs, the cops dragged the boyfriend into the apartment building’s common hallway. They searched the apartment and found crack cocaine, but not enough for a charge beyond simple possession. But in the hallway — aha! — they found more crack under the chair where the boyfriend was sitting, handcuffed in his boxers. The state’s theory was that he dropped it during the arrest, and that’s what bumped the charge up to possession with intent to sell.

The boyfriend testified after the girlfriend. He said he was a drug addict, that he did have crack cocaine in his apartment for his own use but the crack in the hallway was absolutely not his. Where did they think he was keeping it if he was just dragged out of his apartment in boxers?

He cried about his dogs. At one point, the prosecutor asked, “isn’t it true that you were seen at such-and-such crack house on such-and-such date?” The boyfriend looked at the prosecutor through tears and said “Yeah. I told you I’m a crack addict. We go to crack houses.”

Defense: 2. Prosecutors: 0.

When we got to the jury room, ten of us agreed that the girlfriend would be found not guilty and the boyfriend should be found guilty of simple possession, but not possession with intent to sell. Sure, the prosecution had provided other evidence of selling drugs: there was an old Sparkletts’ water bottle filled with single bills that was supposed to be drug money, and they found glassine baggies in the kitchen. But no one could get over that the crack cocaine that bumped this up to a more serious offense was found in a common hallway of an apartment building known for drug use, and not in their apartment.

Adding another layer of doubt, the cops never answered the obvious question: where was he keeping those extra drugs if he was just in his boxers when he was dragged out of bed? How could they attribute the crack on the hallway floor to him? And of course, no one could truly forget the dead dogs.

The ten of us looked at each other satisfied. This seemed like a just result — we were convicting him of possession after all. But two elderly women sat with their arms crossed, and both of them said in unison, “we think they’re guilty.”

Maybe they are, we all said. If this were Vegas, a number of us would probably bet that they were, in fact, dealing drugs. And who knew what evidence had been excluded? But this was a criminal proceeding. The confidential informant clearly sucked. The cops didn’t have an answer about the crack in the hallway. We were dealing with the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard and the defense had raised more than one significant doubt.

A standoff ensued. The two women just kept shaking their heads saying “guilty” and we kept saying yes maybe, even probably, but we can’t convict on this evidence. Three days passed. Three days of dry turkey sandwiches, bags of Doritos, and warm diet cokes — all brought in by an amused looking bailiff every day at 11:30. People started to yell at each other.

Finally, we sent a note to the judge that we couldn’t reach a verdict. He called us back into the courtroom, and said something along these lines: Are you people for real? This is a simple possession with intent to sell case. Get your asses back in that jury room and figure this sh*t out already, FFS. At least that’s how I remember it.

We filed back into the deliberation room, defeated. We knew the two holdouts could withstand both logic and yelling. We sat silently, not sure what to do. The clock ticked.

Finally, one juror who had been silent the entire time spoke up. “Okay, I know these kids are not drug dealers.” He put both his palms down on the table, closed his eyes and sighed. “Lemme tell you how I know. I’m a drug dealer.”

We all froze. There was no sound, except a lone crunch of a Dorito. The snacking juror looked at the rest of us wide-eyed. We all looked back at him as if we were all thinking, How can you be eating chips at a time like this? The drug dealer juror opened his eyes and waited for us to react.

I suddenly remembered that I had seen this juror arrive at the courthouse every day in a huge Cadillac Esplanade, and he was rarely driving. I remembered thinking it was weird, but you can’t ask a perfect stranger why they’re traveling like a head of state.

“I thought you said during voir dire that you’re in air conditioning sales…?” one juror croaked. “What am I supposed to say when they ask what I do?” the drug dealer shrugged, sounding a lot like my Jewish grandmother. I half expected him to say, What, you think that I should tell a prosecutor in open court that I deal drugs?

“So look,” he went on “they wouldn’t have such a shitty apartment if they were selling.” (We had been shown photo after photo of the apartment). “They wouldn’t be sleeping on an air mattress, they would have a better tv. But most importantly, they would have had a scale for whatever they were putting in those glassine baggies.”

This last point all of sudden made everything clear — there was no scale! Sure, the glassine baggies were a bad look, but without a scale how they could be used for anything?

“So here’s what’s gonna happen,” he went on slowly, in a baritone. “The girlfriend is going home. She didn’t know anything. The boyfriend is going to be convicted of possession ’cause we can’t pretend we didn’t hear what we heard.”

We all turned and look at the holdouts. They looked at the floor, arms crossed. “Okay. Fine.” one of them muttered. And that’s how it ended. We filed back into the courtroom. Both defendants crumpled with relief. The prosecutor looked at his feet.

Whoever thought of this “jury of your peers” idea was really onto something, I thought walking home in the sweltering heat. It was almost too on the nose, which makes the title of this piece not quite right — there really was no tragedy here.

I often wonder if the drug dealing juror ever got caught up in a criminal trial himself. I hope not. I liked the guy. I liked his calmness, his rationality, and the kindness he extended the holdouts when the rest of us wanted to wring their necks.

And if he did ever go to trial, I hope he had a juror who was able to say “This guy is not guilty. Lemme tell you how I know.”