
Pegasusnews.com, 2009
If you have never seen the film, 12 Angry Men, perhaps this essay will prompt you to watch it. This month, I finished three weeks of jury duty and unfortunately, my experience was much like being trapped in a real-life antithesis of this film. Instead of one lone voice of reason in a room with eleven close-minded jurors, our jury was cursed with Eleven Sane Jurors all held at bay by One very, very Angry Man. How I longed for Henry Fonda, with his white seersucker suit and pressed white shirt to saunter into our deliberation room and save the day.
To begin with, the case was a rather touchy one—sexual assault of a minor. The defendant was a 59 year old Eastern European immigrant and the victim was his distant ten year old cousin. On the first day of deliberation, before anyone could even say a word, One Angry Man asked for a vote. He wore 1980′s style, giant, round, gold rimmed spectacles and a black Velcro back support belt on the outside of his clothing. He stated he had already made up his mind and nothing we could say would change it. Why oh why, didn’t we pack it in that day and save ourselves three more days of hell? Maybe it was because we dutifully wanted to follow the law of the land. For some reason the meaning of the word “deliberate” seemed to escape the angry Juror #8 (He might have been #9, but Fonda was Juror #8 so I’ll stick with #8). One Angry Man refused to explain his rationale and didn’t want to try to convince anyone else. To be honest on the first day, the jury was roughly split 6-6, but slowly as we deliberated, one by one by the end of day, eleven of us became convinced of the defendant’s guilt.
It was fairly clear from the start that One Angry Man had some hidden issues. During jury selection we were all asked a number of questions about our backgrounds in open court. This man neglected to tell the judge that he had been involved in a lawsuit some years ago, which he told us about in the jury room. He also revealed to me that he had watched a movie called, Ek Ruka Hua Faisla (One who suspended the decision). This movie is a Bollywood remake of 12 Angry Men. He assured me that in our jury, he was going to be that one lone juror, the one who stood for right against wrong and for the American way. He beamed as he told me this, blinking his huge, magnified eyes at me, looking briefly like Clark Kent just before he emerges as Superman.
On day two of deliberation after a weekend break, Juror #8 treated us to “My Life as an Immigrant—a-cliché-hard-working-land-of-opportunity-left-everything-I-had-story.” A real yawner. More than likely you’ve heard most of this story before, so I’ll just skip ahead to the more amusing highlights. He had arrived from Assam, India in the late 1970’s. His father gathered together enough money to send him to Minnesota. His mother had given him a bowl of fried rice and the only stainless steel fork the family owned, so he wouldn’t feel uncomfortable eating rice with his fingers as he sat in the lobby of a five star hotel. (I know, I know…This is just one of the many inconsistencies that were to badger me and eventually cause my breaking point). All this was told as his lip trembled, his chin pointing at us, tears in his eyes, “Da hardest ting I ever did in my life, was to trow away dat fork before getting on dat plane.” What? That was hardest “ting” he ever did? Why not just put the fork in his pocket if it was so precious?
Finally, Juror #8 made his point. In his infinite wisdom, he had discovered the motives for the accusation made by the ten year old victim. Motive One: The defendant was rich and because he was an immigrant (like himself—thus the reason for telling us his hard luck immigrant story), it was obvious that the other family members were trying to make money by accusing the defendant of this crime. No matter that no such disharmony was presented by the defense, or that the ten year old had immediately reported the crime, or that the defendant was a fork lift driver and admitted to his crime in two taped confessions. No, no, no. Because One Angry Man had once been brought to court by a fellow immigrant, he was convinced that this was the reason the 59 year old immigrant was being accused. Motive Two: The family of the victim had decided to further the career of the detective by accusing the defendant of the crime, so the detective could “add one furdder notch to belt.” This was such an asinine statement, that most of the jurors were reduced to gapping like goldfish, repeatedly asking “WHAT?” I must confess that I began openly laughing at this point.
As you can imagine the absolute lunacy of these so called arguments drove the eleven of us mad. We were nearly foaming at the mouth, gnashing our teeth in frustration. No amount of logic, reasoning or common sense could sway this man with such an obvious limit in his intellect. In the middle of the second day, right before lunch, I lost it. Up to this point the prodding had been insistent, but still very polite. After our third viewing of the defendant’s confession—that yes, he had touched the breast of his ten year old cousin, One Angry Man began to loudly refuse to consider our arguments. I morphed into One Angry Woman. I sat up straight, gesturing wildly with my hands and just as loudly stated, “What part of the confession don’t you get? How many times does he need to confess that he TOUCHED her!” At this he pushed his chair back, slamming his hands on the table shouting, “He is not guilty! You will NE-WER conwince me!” A number of other jurors joined in the bedlam and before we knew it four cops rushed in, hands on their batons. After lunch I found out that the argument had set a precedent. It was the first time a deliberation had to be interrupted because of the possibility of violence. They told us even when there were fights between convicts; it had never reached that volume before.
As you can guess, we were never were able to reach a verdict. Our deliberation was brought to an end when the lone mad juror passed a note to the judge without approval stating that we were “hopelessly deadlocked.” When we returned to the jury room to gather our things, I said, “I hope you are satisfied with your behavior. Your lack of ability to be honest and open minded thwarted justice, besides wasting thousands of tax dollars.” To which he said, “Don’t you talk to me!” Then he threw back his chair, shouted for me to shut up, and stormed out.
While the experience was a valuable one, my time as a juror left much to be desired. For me there was a real sense that this time the system had not worked. I knew that the young girl would have to once again stand in open court and graphically demonstrate how she was touched. I hated that we were unable to complete our duty as jurors and that the entire trial would have to be played out once more, but to a different and hopefully, untainted jury. I felt helpless, frustrated and had a strong feeling, that this time justice had eluded this victim—all because of One Angry Man.
(By the way, despite the brilliant costume choices for 12 Angry Men, no costume designer was credited. Ahh! The days of old Hollywood, when people were actually more concerned with creating art rather than getting credit; back when they made films, not movies!)
Can we Talk?
October 4, 2010 in Uncategorized | Tags: anonymity, body language, care, comment, communicate, compassion, context, crime, Dharun Ravi, email, emotion, EU, exchange, facebook, gay, gay bashing, hate, hate crime, human, internet, internet crime, lesbian, mask, Molly Wei, New Brunswick, responsibility, Rutgers, talking, text, time, tone, tweet, Tyler Clementi | 18 comments
Bozeman Daily Chronicle, April 27, 2011
The recent tragic events on the Rutgers University campus have prompted a variety of responses. For me, this was significant because not only do I teach at Rutgers, but I have a son who is a freshman there. The official RU responses to these events have been appropriate and compassionate. Students and faculty have expressed shock and sadness. On a larger perspective, the media has responded by distorting some of the facts while searching to place blame. The gay and lesbian community held a rather poorly attended demonstration on the New Brunswick RU campus and called this a hate crime. The death of Tyler Clementi was not a crime of hate, bullying or gay bashing but rather a crime of stupidity.
The coming of the internet has brought many positives into our lives; easy access to information, an instant connectedness to people far away, increased efficiency in the workplace, jobs and of course the blog. At the same time it has taken from us giant, whole pieces of what makes us human. We are quickly losing our ability to communicate and to take responsibility for that communication.
A real life exchange requires a person to think, listen and respond, all the while taking responsibility for what is said. Even a negative exchange allows time to retract or restate statements and the ability to say, “I’m sorry” or “I understand”. An internet exchange provides none of these. Within seconds the most foolish comment is available for the world to see—and interpret. Not only is there an issue with time, there is the problem of context. The words, “I could kill you,” can be interpreted to be ominous, funny, clever, joking, happy, surprised, angry…the possibilities are many. When removed from their context words have different meanings. Internet communication also fails to provide body language and tone. Yes, there are the occasional smiley faces that can accompany a snide remark to show that it is only meant to tease, but for the most part body language and tone are absent. Much of our talking and listening happens when there are no words being exchanged. A laugh, a wink, a shrug, leaning forward or back, our voice going up or down. A face to face conversation provides time, context, responsibility, emotion and body language.
Instead of engaging with each other, we are spending time in a world that provides a veneer of anonymity—a mask of sorts. When most communication is done via email, status updates, texting or twitter, there is confusion between the real world and the mask. A person who would never dream of describing their innermost feelings or fantasies in a face to face conversation, all of a sudden feels a false sense of security. Just read a few status updates on Facebook for a minute or two; “Feeling rather empty right now plz only comment if u do love or care about me!… Stop holding out on me Jew damn Jew… Ted’s a retarded &*#% that should be chemically castrated!…Jared has aids… Tammy go f— urself and go back to hell…Is diarrhea a sign of syphilis?”and it is evident that any shred of civility has vanished. Posting every feeling and every emotion all the time, has led to a jaded, apathetic, cynicism toward real human pain. My response to this constant stream of needless information? Stop stating your feelings! Try talking to someone instead.
An average American spends eight hours a day on the computer. Eight hours is the time it takes to hold a full time job, get a good night’s sleep, fly to the EU, have a leisurely dinner and enjoy a movie or read a great book. I find it pathetic that people are replacing human contact, compassion and care with status updates and tweets. Instead of meeting for coffee or lunch, people resort to stating every single emotion on the internet. Some post minute by minute updates. The sheer absurdity that someone can actually claim to have 600+ friends has diluted the very meaning of the word friendship. Everyone wants to be heard and to be known. But when everyone is screaming, no one is listening.
The place to find trust, honesty, compassion and care, is in our small real world circle of family and friends. Instead of spending eight hours on the computer, spend it talking to a friend, meeting a family member or lending a helping hand to someone in need. Perhaps if someone had taken a moment to have a real, live, accountable, honest conversation with Dharun Ravi, Molly Wei or Tyler Clementi we would not have read Tyler’s haunting last words on the internet.