//boroughing//
Spring 2018
Jury Duty in New York County
Matt Landes
One of Tina Fey’s finer moments comes in an episode of 30 Rock when her character, Liz Lemon, has to report for jury duty in New York. Arriving at the courthouse with Playgirl magazines in hand and a Princess Leia hairdo, Lemon is sure she will be dismissed. During the initial selection, she claims, “I don’t really think it’s fair for me to be in a jury because I’m a hologram.” Of course, though, this is Manhattan, and the judges, lawyers, and assistant district attorneys have seen everything. The judge curtly responds, “You seem fine to me,” and Lemon gets put in the juror’s room.
Not long ago, I showed up to the drab courthouse on Centre Street for my first jury duty. After witnessing a shouting match between a juror and a security guard in the lobby and seeing windows for the final time all morning, I went upstairs to the juror’s room. I was then shown a comically bad and overly dramatic instructional video on how to be a juror with two hundred other potential jurors. The diversity of the crowd was striking, but what united us was our unhappiness in being there.
I think I learned something during this presentation (did you know that Marble Hill in the Bronx is actually part of New York County and people from there schlep all the way to the Financial District to go to court?), but the whole display was shockingly simple, considering we were being prepared to decide criminal verdicts. After two hours of waiting—one of the main takeaways from jury duty is just how much waiting there is—a court officer came into the room and mispronounced about 50 names, including my own, telling us to report to the Honorable Judge Robert Mandelbaum’s courtroom on the sixth floor.
Upon taking our places in the courtroom, Judge Mandelbaum jovially told us that this case wouldn’t take nearly as long as the case down the hall, which was in its third month. He then immediately launched into a passionate rant about the value we jurors bring to the justice system. Everyone dutifully nodded along. With an air of profundity the judge asked if we could commit to being jurors. A hand shot up. We had our Liz Lemon.
“Which part do you object to?” asked the Honorable Judge.
“The last one. I wouldn’t be able to listen to other jurors during deliberations if I felt that I really believed one way.”
“Clerk, please mark this juror’s ballot ‘CIVIL CASES ONLY.’ Sir, you should know that civil cases tend to take almost twice as long in New York County. Please go to the juror’s room to await another trial.”
It was like a more repetitive and serious version of 30 Rock, but still, 30 Rock was right. No one was getting out of this.
Twelve names of jurors were then called for questioning, which was simultaneously the most boring and most interesting part of the day. The inequalities in Manhattan—unfortunately there were no residents of Marble Hill present—were laid bare. An unemployed grandmother from Harlem sat next to an Upper East Side man who runs an aerospace company and has a Ph.D in artificial intelligence. Students sat next to marketing professionals, struggling actors, and bankers.
The tedious process of asking each juror the same questions combined with the melodrama of the attorneys was almost silly. The defense lawyer started his segment. “A loaded gun,” he said, and paused for dramatic effect. “A loaded gun. That is what we are dealing with here today ladies and gentlemen.” This tactic apparently worked, as one of the jurors had to be dismissed because it reminded her of when she was robbed at gunpoint long ago. The bites of Pop-Tart that Judge Mandelbaum snuck during the lawyers’ questions only added to the absurdity.
Yet the seriousness of the case was real. If convicted, the defendant faced a mandatory minimum sentence of three and a half years. The possibility that he could be convicted was scary; after all, the assistant district attorney said the detective had lied to the defendant in her initial interrogation.
Eventually we were dismissed for an hour and a half lunch break. After lunch, the clerk called me up, and the judge asked about my roommates and my studies. He was particularly interested in the fact that someone I live with is thinking of becoming a lawyer. We were then all told to leave the courtroom for around ten minutes. When we came back in, the clerk called the names of the rest of the jury. No Matt Landes. I was off the hook, along with around 35 other ecstatic New Yorkers.
Many of Manhattan’s residents often do not get the opportunity to experience firsthand the city’s vast inequality, which has become even more exaggerated since the Bloomberg years. Sure, we see New Yorkers from different socioeconomic backgrounds on the subway, but I bet the aerospace CEO and the middle-aged banker did not take the 6 train back home. The courtroom exposed these notorious disparities by putting us all together. At the same time, jury duty was leveling: everyone had to deal with the same boring and surprisingly consequential experience of jury duty, no matter their lives outside the courtroom. On Centre Street, I learned that the ultimate equalizers in New York are death and jury duty.
Not long ago, I showed up to the drab courthouse on Centre Street for my first jury duty. After witnessing a shouting match between a juror and a security guard in the lobby and seeing windows for the final time all morning, I went upstairs to the juror’s room. I was then shown a comically bad and overly dramatic instructional video on how to be a juror with two hundred other potential jurors. The diversity of the crowd was striking, but what united us was our unhappiness in being there.
I think I learned something during this presentation (did you know that Marble Hill in the Bronx is actually part of New York County and people from there schlep all the way to the Financial District to go to court?), but the whole display was shockingly simple, considering we were being prepared to decide criminal verdicts. After two hours of waiting—one of the main takeaways from jury duty is just how much waiting there is—a court officer came into the room and mispronounced about 50 names, including my own, telling us to report to the Honorable Judge Robert Mandelbaum’s courtroom on the sixth floor.
Upon taking our places in the courtroom, Judge Mandelbaum jovially told us that this case wouldn’t take nearly as long as the case down the hall, which was in its third month. He then immediately launched into a passionate rant about the value we jurors bring to the justice system. Everyone dutifully nodded along. With an air of profundity the judge asked if we could commit to being jurors. A hand shot up. We had our Liz Lemon.
“Which part do you object to?” asked the Honorable Judge.
“The last one. I wouldn’t be able to listen to other jurors during deliberations if I felt that I really believed one way.”
“Clerk, please mark this juror’s ballot ‘CIVIL CASES ONLY.’ Sir, you should know that civil cases tend to take almost twice as long in New York County. Please go to the juror’s room to await another trial.”
It was like a more repetitive and serious version of 30 Rock, but still, 30 Rock was right. No one was getting out of this.
Twelve names of jurors were then called for questioning, which was simultaneously the most boring and most interesting part of the day. The inequalities in Manhattan—unfortunately there were no residents of Marble Hill present—were laid bare. An unemployed grandmother from Harlem sat next to an Upper East Side man who runs an aerospace company and has a Ph.D in artificial intelligence. Students sat next to marketing professionals, struggling actors, and bankers.
The tedious process of asking each juror the same questions combined with the melodrama of the attorneys was almost silly. The defense lawyer started his segment. “A loaded gun,” he said, and paused for dramatic effect. “A loaded gun. That is what we are dealing with here today ladies and gentlemen.” This tactic apparently worked, as one of the jurors had to be dismissed because it reminded her of when she was robbed at gunpoint long ago. The bites of Pop-Tart that Judge Mandelbaum snuck during the lawyers’ questions only added to the absurdity.
Yet the seriousness of the case was real. If convicted, the defendant faced a mandatory minimum sentence of three and a half years. The possibility that he could be convicted was scary; after all, the assistant district attorney said the detective had lied to the defendant in her initial interrogation.
Eventually we were dismissed for an hour and a half lunch break. After lunch, the clerk called me up, and the judge asked about my roommates and my studies. He was particularly interested in the fact that someone I live with is thinking of becoming a lawyer. We were then all told to leave the courtroom for around ten minutes. When we came back in, the clerk called the names of the rest of the jury. No Matt Landes. I was off the hook, along with around 35 other ecstatic New Yorkers.
Many of Manhattan’s residents often do not get the opportunity to experience firsthand the city’s vast inequality, which has become even more exaggerated since the Bloomberg years. Sure, we see New Yorkers from different socioeconomic backgrounds on the subway, but I bet the aerospace CEO and the middle-aged banker did not take the 6 train back home. The courtroom exposed these notorious disparities by putting us all together. At the same time, jury duty was leveling: everyone had to deal with the same boring and surprisingly consequential experience of jury duty, no matter their lives outside the courtroom. On Centre Street, I learned that the ultimate equalizers in New York are death and jury duty.
//MATT LANDES is a senior in Columbia College and Managing Editor of The Current. He can be reached at landes.matt@columbia.edu. Photo courtesy of Mid-Century Mundane.