Last Monday, I reported for jury duty at the Cook County Criminal Court, located at 26^th and California. As far as jury duty goes, it’s probably the location Cook County residents least want to be summoned to, but it’s ten minutes from my home so I tried to look on the bright side.

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised to hear that before pulling into the parking garage and walking into the imposing brick behemoth of a building, I had done some serious research. I Googled “jury duty in Cook County,” and “jury duty at Criminal Court,” and read every blog post and message board, absorbing the information and imagining what my experience would be like. Like millions who report for jury duty every year, I hoped my day would entail hours of silent reading and snacking ending in the receipt of a meager check and a pat on the back. My worst fear? Being put on a murder trial.

While I anticipated some quality people watching and even some talking to strangers, no online research could have prepared me for how the day turned out – and those are the best kind of days. I also knew that no matter what happened, I would be able to write about it, and approaching any experience as a writing assignment does two things: it makes me excited about an activity I might otherwise dread and it forces me to pay attention. Like, serious attention.

The day started as I suppose all jurors’ days begin – except I had lost my summons. I was feeling pretty proud of myself and my commitment to civic duty that I showed up anyway, but not having a summons made an already arduous process much more complex. I had to check my phone before going to security, ask at least three people how to get a duplicate summons, fill out said duplicate summons, go back to get my phone, go through security again, and finally make it to the jury assembly room where I was assigned to a panel and took a seat in the back corner by the vending machines.

I was seated by 9:30 and at 10 am sharp we were shown an antiquated video, narrated by Lester Holt and set to sappy patriotic music, that explained the basics of a courtroom and thanked us for participating in our American obligation to aide in every citizen’s right to a trial by jury. I have to admit, once again, I felt good about doing my duty and proud to be an American. When the video ended, the room quieted and I settled into reading and annotating The Handmaid’s Tale, hoping that would be the most action I would see all day.

The universe had other plans. At around 11:45 my panel was called, along with two others. We were lined up shoulder to shoulder, counted, issued bright red “Cook County Juror” stickers to wear on our chests, and ushered from the jury assembly room into elevators, through the stark, empty lobby, over to the criminal court side of the building. If I had to describe the experience, I would say that we were “herded” while county workers watched us pass and said things like “thank you for serving.” While I didn’t say it aloud, I did wonder, “Did any of us have a choice?”

At one point, while we were lined up shoulder to shoulder in front of a tall, handsome deputy the woman next to me said, “I feel like we’re on a field trip!” “Yeah,” I answered, “I guess it is like an adult field trip. I was going to say I feel like we’re in a lineup, or before a firing squad.” I liked her interpretation better and quickly became friendly with her and the woman beside her. They were both attorneys – one, Martha*, is a practicing corporate attorney, and the other, Amy*, is a healthcare consultant who passed the bar but never practiced law.

Martha, Amy, myself, and fifty-seven others crowded into a small courtroom. Once inside, we found two sets of attorneys, one defendant, and a judge. The judge addressed us, told us the name of the defendant but not the nature of his crime, informed us that we were being considered for placement on this jury, and then sent us off to lunch with orders not to discuss the details of the case but to return promptly at 12:45. Well, I thought, that should be easy. We don’t know anything about the case. The sheer number of people in the courtroom, however, suggested that it was a big case – violent crime, rape, or – the biggie – murder. I was, understandably, pretty nervous about getting put on this jury.

Roughly ten minutes later, I walked into the court cafeteria touting a lukewarm grilled chicken sandwich and bottle of water, and Martha flagged me down. “Have a seat!” she said, and I did. I fell into chatting with my new acquaintances, and by the time 12:40 rolled around, the tension in my stomach had eased. I wasn’t excited about possibly being selected for a jury, but talking to strangers calmed my nerves immensely. As we waited to be let back into the courtroom, Amy, Martha, and I began calling one another “jury friends.” Everything is easier with friends.

At around 12:55, a deputy poked her head out of the courtroom. “You can all come in,” she said, “we are going to be calling names.” Amy’s was the first name called, and she was ushered into the belly of the courtroom where twenty-eight seats were arranged in a loose “U” shape. Twenty-seven names followed Amy’s – one of them was Martha’s and none of them were mine. The thirty-two of us who didn’t get called were told to sit in the gallery behind one-way bullet-proof glass in what I can only describe as church pews.   Because I had done my research, I knew this meant I was in the bottom half of the candidates for the jury. There was something in my preliminary paperwork that the defense or prosecution didn’t like and there was a very good chance I would go home that night with a check for $17.20 and no reason to return the next day.

The judge began by addressing the entire jury pool – the chosen twenty-eight, and the entire gallery. She thanked us for being there and then read the charges levied against the defendant. As I had guessed, he was charged with first-degree murder. After ascertaining which member of the jury pool knew anyone on the case (lawyers, witnesses, etc.), the judge began interviewing each of the twenty-eight, one by one. The entire process took nearly four hours and it was totally fascinating. In the gallery, we could hear every single word, and listened as each potential juror answered questions varying from “What part of the county do you live in?” to “Have you ever been arrested” to “What do you like to do for fun?” and “Are you active on social media?” It dawned on me that I was learning information about these people that even their neighbors and coworkers didn’t know.   It felt…invasive. While every one of the twenty-eight had the option to refuse to publicly answer a question and speak later to the judge in chambers, only one took that option. I don’t know if all those people were comfortable speaking openly or whether they were simply intimidated by the process. Sitting in a chair being questioned by a judge can feel quite a bit like you are on trial, and I’m fairly certain I would have answered anything she asked me.

After nearly four hours, the judge released us for fifteen minutes while she, the attorneys, and the defendant went into chambers to choose the final fourteen. I stood in the hallway and chatted with Martha and Amy. We talked about normal stuff – the fact that Martha and I had the exact same color of toenail polish, society’s fascination with The Bachelorette, and how badly we would feel if the juror with three children (ages five, two, and six weeks) was chosen for the final panel. I’m sure Martha and Amy were uneasy – while all our fates were in the hands of those people behind closed doors, their future was much more uncertain than mine.

Exactly fifteen minutes later, we were back in the courtroom, and the attorneys on both sides had the chance to individually question jurors. That took about ten minutes and then the powers-that-be disappeared for a final time. This time we stayed in the courtroom and the minutes ticked by endlessly as we waited for the final decision. All the walls came down. On the other side of the darkened glass, the twenty-eight began talking to each other. It was like a classroom when the teacher is trying to fix an overhead projector. First, there was a smattering of conversation, then a crescendo until the noise reached a fever pitch – laughing, people talking over each other, nervous guffaws. It was no different in the gallery. The woman next to me started telling me about how she was creating her family tree with the help of Ancestry.com. The woman next to her confessed that she needed a cigarette. I replied, “I need a cigarette, and I don’t smoke.” She chuckled.

The heavy-set young man in front of me who hadn’t spoken a word to another soul the entire day turned around. He shared his past jury experiences and the fact that his deceased mother had received a jury summons and he was going to have to call and tell them she would not be reporting. “Lung cancer, six months ago,” he said, “Don’t smoke.” A pair of young girls two rows behind me who had befriended one another over the course of the day asked me several questions all along the lines of “What happens now?” People had picked up on the fact that I’d done my research and others had past jury experience to share.

As I sat there and talked with these strangers, I tried to liken it to a similar experience. When you report for jury duty, you are put into a situation you did not choose and cannot get out of and your fate is in someone else’s hands. There is a certain level of stress, the threat of an unpleasant or at least unexpected immediate future, and you are with a completely and totally random cross-section of humanity. Age, race, religion, sexuality, marital status, economic status, level of education – you name it, it was in that courtroom. But we were all, so to speak, in the same boat. At first, I thought it was a little like being on a very turbulent flight. When you are boarding, you avoid eye contact, take your seat, read your book. But when things get dicey and the plane hits rough air – people start looking around, frantic. They lock eyes, they search for the airline attendants, listen tensely for an announcement. You and everyone on that plane just want to know what is going to happen – you want to know that everything is going to be ok. I watched jurors glance at each other in exactly that way the entire day.

Then I started thinking about how, in such a short time, I had bonded with these people. I was nervous as I waited for the final fourteen to be called – not for myself, but for Martha and Amy. I looked at those seated around me in the gallery and thought, I could start to care about these people – the young man whose mother had died, the woman who was mapping out her history, the man who told me that I should turn in my check so that I would get my full wages for the day from my employer. I started thinking about disaster movies where total strangers move mountains and take bullets for one another, and I got it. When under duress of any sort, placed in an enclosed space or situation with a group of other human beings, all our differences are stripped away and we make connections based on our shared experiences and humanity.

The judge and attorneys reentered the courtroom and almost immediately the judge read off the names of the chosen, but not before she thanked all of us for doing our civic duty that day. She said (and I paraphrase) that she knew that few of us wanted to be there, but reminded us that we would want a fair jury for ourselves or our loved ones if we ever found ourselves on the wrong side of the law. She began reading off the names, and Amy’s was the first she called. Martha was called later, and by the end, there were sighs of relief and resignation throughout the courtroom. I found Martha and Amy and hugged them. “We’re sorry you didn’t make it!” they said. “I’m not,” I responded, and wished them luck. We exchanged phone numbers, and perhaps someday I will reconnect with them and hear all the details.

Part of me wanted to stay behind so I could scope out the chosen members of the final jury, but instead, I scurried outside to the fresh air to the safety of my Honda. I called my mom and my way home and she looked up the details of the case. The defendant had been charged with the murder of a sixteen-year-old boy. When I heard that, I knew that I had been “safe” all along – no defense attorney in his right mind would allow a Catholic high school teacher on that jury.

The case was expected to wrap-up last Friday and I’ve tried hunting online for the outcome to no avail. Perhaps I’ll do a little more digging because I am truly curious and the further I get from the experience the more it feels like it happened to someone else. It’s become more a story and less a reality which feels bizarre because for the judge and jury – and especially for the defendant and the victim’s family – it was very real indeed.

It’s taken me nearly two weeks to write this piece, and I’ve lived a whole lot of life in the days between serving my “one day or one trial” and hitting “publish” on this post. If I learned anything from my nine hours spent at Cook County Criminal Court, it is that a day in court (if it’s not your day in court) is a perfect, tiny microcosm of life. You are summoned by forces beyond your control, meet and socialize only with those people who land in your orbit, participate in the illusion of choice while recognizing the omnipresence of chance, present a carefully constructed version of yourself in the hopes that you will be accepted (or rejected) and then, at some point – if you’re lucky – you make real human connection. You may even decide another person’s fate.

But isn’t that what we all do? In the smallest and largest ways – in our actions and inaction – we decide our own fate and the fates of others. It is only under the microscopic experience of something like jury duty that it becomes obvious. I don’t know what glacial turn of the cogs in the bureaucratic machine spit out my name for jury duty on July 30^th, 2018, but I have to say – I’m glad it happened.

Until next time…