Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Buddhist
The Reverend Mr Ford’s Day in Court: Juror Number Four’s Tale of Theory & Practice

The Reverend Mr Ford’s Day in Court: Juror Number Four’s Tale of Theory & Practice

Last updated on: November 9, 2018 at 4:47 pm by James Ford

The Reverend Mr Ford’s Day in Court: Juror Number Four’s Tale of Theory & Practice 2018-11-09T16:47:20-08:00 James Ford

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Okay, I took advantage of the standard offer to put off responding to my jury summons. I had the opportunity to set it at a date that seemed without conflict. Well, assuming nothing untoward happened. More on that, anon…

Now, in the abstract I had no objection to serving.

(In theory)

Yes. I believe that race enters into who ends up being arrested all too often. We have a serious problem with structural racism and it seems as obvious as the nose on my face that racism infects our criminal justice system. As to criminal trials, I am haunted by that old New Yorker cartoon, “You have a pretty good case, Mr Pitken. How much justice can you afford?” Our adversarial judicial system favors those with money. Again, as obvious as that nose and that face.

In practice we humans have a profound sense of fairness, of equity, and an equally powerful sense of getting a personal advantage. Or, to put it another way, we humans simply have not figured out how to rise above the fact that we are basically chimpanzees with clothing.

Our country is founded on an idea of a Commonwealth, a republic with mutual accountability and support. That the republic is more oligarchic than democratic seems to come with the territory of the clothed chimp part of the deal. I would it otherwise. But, again, I look around the globe and I don’t see a ton of people actually doing better. Some. And I am with those who want to make this experiment into something more genuinely equitable, more authentically serving all of us.

Now, in my fantasy world a court would be a place of seeking truth and bringing justice and mercy in equal parts to the project. And, not the world in which we live. Still. Our Republic, profoundly, terribly flawed, as it is, seems in fact to be not much worse than most other parts of the planet. Sadly, better than too many.

And, so, I am totally willing to serve on a jury. Not to nullify, or impose, but to do the work of justice informed by the call of mercy within the frame of the judicial system we have.

That’s the theory. How I see it, writ large. And, okay, I never actually expected to serve on a jury.

(In practice)

I’ve been called to jury duty three times before, with two I simply called in the day ahead for a week and was never called into the courthouse. The one time I was called into the courthouse I sat in the juror pool room for most of the day before being excused. So, as we humans like to extrapolate from insufficient data, I just sort of assumed nothing would happen.

And indeed I was excused for Monday. Then for Tuesday. And then called in on Wednesday. No big deal I thought.

The George Deukmejian Courthouse is an impressive newer building in downtown Long Beach. At two miles away, I could literally walk to it. Although I chose to take up Jan’s offer of being dropped off. I’d passed on doing the online orientation because, well, because I never expected to get this far. So, it was pretty early on Wednesday when I checked in and with what looked to be a pretty good gang, went through a straightforward explanation of the process.

Then I was part of a first batch to be escorted over to a courthouse. Maybe forty of us. Possibly a few more.

We were informed it was a criminal case. The judge read out nine counts alleging a High School teacher had seduced her fifteen year old charge after reading a paper where the student confessed having a crush on another female student. An affair was alleged, if that is the right term, affair not alleged, continued until the girl was nineteen. The girl, now young woman says she held this close until fairly recently when she reported this to the police. There was an arrest, and here we were now at the trial.

I thought oh, god, please let the cup pass from me. I couldn’t think of a more complex and unpleasant case to be called upon to assess guilt or innocence. Sadly, my prayer got the same answer as Jesus’.

Eighteen people were put in the jury box and other seats up by the box. And the process began.

The judge fairly quickly dismissed three people who had experienced sexual abuse. Over time two others admitted their prejudice against LGBTQ folk were excused.

After that they got into digging into who might be the jury. It genuinely seemed to me the judge was seeking an impartial jury willing to abide by the court’s instructions. The prosecution and the defense pretty clearly looking for people who would listen sympathetically to their perspective.

Wednesday passed. I guesstimated that as my name was usually called in the middle of the pack, and maybe just a tiny bit to the end of the middle, I might not be empaneled. Indeed not. But the pool steadily decreased. It passed on too Thursday. The morning ground on. Then into the afternoon. Then, finally, I found my name called. I was number sixteen. Which meant if no one else were excused I would not be on the jury.

I determined I would be as honest and forthright as I could be while making no attempt to wiggle out of the job.

When asked what my profession was I felt the simplest and based on being paid for it, honest statement was that I was a retired Unitarian (Universalist) minister. Based on the process so far I figured if they wanted more they could ask, buy they didn’t seem to be looking for nuance. Now, I’m proud of also being a Zen Buddhist priest and leading several sitting groups. It is near the heart of my life. But, as to date I’ve put vastly more money into it than I can now ever hope to get out of it, here in court my Zen work is avocation.

Shortly after the judge asked her questions but before being handed over to the gentle mercies of the attorneys we adjourned for the day. Friday the defense pulled up on his smart phone a copy of the Unitarian Universalist Principles. He read off a few, focusing on inherent worth of people, justice, equity, and compassion, and free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Under oath I affirmed I believed in those things. I noticed he didn’t go through the whole list. With a couple more small questions, he said he was done. The prosecutor had no questions for me.

Then there were a quick raft of dismissals. And before the dust settled I was juror number four.

We were sworn in and informed we would have until the following Friday off when the trial would begin. The judge stated she would be unhappy if the case ran through Thanksgiving. While I found her solicitous and respectful, and particularly conscious of people’s need for regular access to the bathrooms, I also came away with the sense one would not want to be the person who made her unhappy.

And, I have to admit, I simply did not believe I would be impanelled until after it happened. I’m a freaking minister, after all. As they say, forgiveness is my business. Totally not going to be picked. Until I was…

First, there was one practical personal consequence. Back to that noting consequences to my delaying going on jury duty. And that was the very Friday (today) the trial was to begin I was scheduled to fly out to Urbana Champaign, well, to Chicago’s Midway airport and then to Urbana Champaign where a dear friend and colleague was being installed as a parish minister. Me, I was to give the charge to the minister, a small but in our ministerial lives an important moment. And. Now. This was no longer going to happen. So, I had to take care of that (Fortunately, my words will be read by another colleague, in case you were wondering).

Second, I had to hold in my heart all the parts. I was glad that I would be there because that meant at least one person wasn’t going to be making judgments based on the sexuality of the defendant. I am strongly inclined to believe someone when they say they’ve been abused. And, while, I believe there are gray areas, the very charge of the person being a minor and the accused being at least ten years older than the minor, helped put that into a working perspective for me. And, and, I felt I could sit in that jury and work from the assumption I had to be convinced the charges were true beyond a reasonable doubt.

I thought a lot about that reasonable doubt in the ensuing days. In a system seeking justice, that the onus was on the prosecution made a ton of sense to me. The defense, in our system, has no obligation to prove anything. At least in theory. But a good theory, and something I felt I could comfortably work within and wanting to be practice.

So, there I was committed to being an honest juror.

And, wracked with a sense no matter how it turned out I would feel terrible. I was to be a midwife to the consequences of actions taken well before I even had relocated to Southern California. But, fortune had brought me into this place. And I felt a profound sense of obligation. And I felt a terrible fear of getting it wrong.

An interesting cascade of feelings, and thoughts where the theory of justice and its application met in my heart.

I write these words from my perspective. But, I was terribly conscious of how this was true in its own way for each of the jurors. And for the accused. And for the accuser.

The sadnesses of being dressed up chimps…

Then this morning we the jury arrived at the court. There was a delay and we were left standing in the hallway. Finally the judge came out and told us there had been a plea and that we were excused. She made a small speech thanking us. She also said the sentencing was set for the 30th. I don’t plan on going to the courthouse, but I will check the news reports.

And that’s it. Theory and practice. The abstract and the actual.

Do I feel good? No. Do I feel bad? Not particularly. But I do have a take away. This is not a good system. It has too many flaws. I will always wonder if the defendant’s decision was based on her being guilty, or that she was innocent but felt she couldn’t win the trial and could at least hope for lesser amount of jail time – there seems to me to be no chance there will not be jail time. Or, maybe she just plain ran out of money. And. I think of the accuser, now vindicated in her charges. Will she feel some kind of, what? Not closure. I find closure something of a nonsense term, at least short of the grave. But, some ending and the possibility of some beginning. But, she must feel other feelings, as well. What exactly the mix, I have no way of knowing, but it can’t all be good. And, maybe it never will be good.

And, someone, we have lurched along and maybe, probably, justice was served. As to mercy, who knows? A measure of that is in the judge’s hands, and she will deal it out on the 30th…

So, I don’t know.

But, I do feel as imperfect as the whole thing was, as hard as it is for everyone involved, my hard so much less than so many others, still, hard – it was all worth it.

About as good as a bunch of dressed up monkeys are going to be able to do.

And with that, I need a nap…

Previous Post

November 8, 2018

She Might Be a Saint: Recalling Dorothy Day And Her Way of Nonviolence, Voluntary Poverty, Prayer, and Radical Hospitality

Next Post

November 11, 2018 Come Closer: A Few Words to a Zen Priest Being Installed as a Unitarian Universalist Minister

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Christmas Carol Abolitionist African-American Ahmadiyya Alan Watts Aldous Huxley Allen Ginsberg Amedkar Jayanti American politics American Zen Anaheim Zen Sangha Anglican Annie Besant April Fool Armageddon Art and Religion artificial intellegence Atheist Awakening B R Ambedkar Barlaam & Josaphat Beatnik Between Bhagavad Gita Bible biography birthday bodhisattva Bodhisattva Precepts Book burning Book of Common Prayer Book of Mormon Brahmo Samaj Buddha Buddhism Buddhist Buddhist Lord's Prayer Butterflies Calendars cartoons cat ChatGPT Chicken Tortilla Soup choices Christian atheism Christian mysticism Christian origins Christian Science Christian Zen Christianity Christianity and Buddhism christmas Christmas Truce Christopher Isherwood Church of Later Day Saints Cinco de Mayo circus covenant critical thinking culture D. T. Suzuki Dalit Buddhism Daniel Defoe Desert Fathers and Mothers dharma talk Dogen Donald Trump Dongshan's Five Ranks Dorothy Day dream Duty Easter ecology Edwin Arnold emptiness Empty Moon Zen Network Episcopal Church Eternal Now Ethics evolution existentialism Faith fantasy Fathers Day film film review fire Five Ranks Folk music food Form and emptiness Four Seals Francis of Assisi Francis Xavier Free thinker friendship George MacDonald Gerald Heard Glenn Taylor Webb God Good Friday Gospel of Gospel of Mark Gospel of Thomas grace Graduate Theological Unioin Graduate Theological Union Guanyin H R Blyth Hakuin Ekaku Hanamatsuri Hanukkah Harada Yasutani Zen Heart Sutra Henry David Thoreau Hermann Hesse Hinduism History and Religion history of religion Holy Spirit home Hospitality Icon Ides of March Isaac Newton Islam Islamic mysticism Jack Kerouac James Luther Adams Jiddu Krishnamurti Joan of Arc Johannes Gutenberg John Donne joke Judaism justice karma kensho King James Bible koan Koun Yamada Kyoto School Lewis Carrol Liberal Christianity Liberal Religion Life Plan Community Liminal literature Literature and Religion Liturgy Lord's Prayer Love Mahatma Gandhi Mahayana Martin Luther King Jr Mary Baker Eddy Mary Magdelene Mary Oliver Mayflower Compact Meditation memories memory metaphor money money and religioin Mormons Mother's Day movie review mysticism mythic Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church New Thought Nichiren Buddhism Nonduality not knowing Omar Khayyam Pacific School of Religion pagan Palm Sunday Passover peace Pentecost perennialism Phantastes Philip Kapleau philosophy Pilgrimage poetry Poetry and Religion politics Prayer Precepts Printing Press prophecy prophetic spirituality psychology Pure Land Queer religion queering religion Quietism Ram Mohan Roy rebirth recipe Relationships and religion religion religion and history Religious syncretism Resistance Retirement Retreat review Rissho Kosei Kai Ritual Robert Aitken Roshi Robert Ingersoll Rohatsu Romani religion Rosie the Riveter saints samadhi SanboZen Sangha Satyagraha science science and reigion science and religion science fiction seminary sermon Sesshin Sex and Religion Shinran Sikh Sikh tradition silence Social Justice Socially Engaged Buddhism Society and religion Soto Zen soul spiritual community spiritual practice Spirituality Sufism Suicide superstition Taoism Television Teresa of Avila Thanksgiving theological schools Theosophy Thomas Merton Time Transcendentalism Transcendentalist Trinitarian Trinity Uncategorized unitarian Unitarian Christianity Unitarian Universalist Universalism Vajrayana Vedanta Walking war Willa Cather William Ellery Channing wisdom women and religion women in religion World Teacher Writing zazen Zen Zen Center Zen inspired retriement zen meditation Zen Precepts Zen women

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which country has the most Protestant Christians by number?

Select your answer to see how you score.

United Kingdom Brazil Germany United States