because of me, there’s another drug dealer out in the streets of DC

Have my peeps already heard about Karl Rove and Madeline Albright doing jury duty on the same day this week? Isn’t that exciting? I’m so envious. I wish I could’ve been called for jury duty.

I’m one of those rare people who actually enjoys jury duty. In fact, I recently received a jury duty summons for DC court (apparently, they didn’t get the memo that I had moved to VA) and was so sad to report that I wasn’t eligible. If it wasn’t punishable by a fine and jail time, I would’ve lied and gladly accepted my civic duty.

Out of three tries, I served as a juror twice, once in the OC and once in DC. I had imagined a “12 Angry Men” scenario or (even better) a “Law & Order” type of trial. In the OC trial, I got neither. I sat in on a malpractice suit involving an orthopedic surgeon and his patient, an elderly gentleman who had had total knee replacement surgery. At the time, I was experiencing some serious knee pain of my own and was happy to sit in and listen to all of the testimony regarding the surgery and the physician’s alleged negligence. Naturally, I sided with the patient. Apparently, it is really hard to prove negligence. As a jury, we had to agree as a majority that a single act of negligence on the part of the physician directly led to the deterioration of the patient’s health/well-being. The prosecution’s case was dependent on a physician from the Mayo Clinic, the man who ended up fixing the patient’s botched knee surgery. If he had just said, “the defendant did this and that is why I had to go in and fix his knee,” we all would’ve sided with the patient. Unfortunately, the Mayo Clinic doc didn’t and the jury decided in favor of the defendant (except me and one other person—we dissented).

The next case was far juicier and was more Law and Order than the OC case (and the deliberations were very “12 Angry Men”-like too). A young man was charged with drug possession and possession with the intent to sell. He was caught with crack just 8 blocks from where I lived on the Hill! In order to convict him on both counts, the prosecution had to first prove possession. Which they didn’t. The prosecuting attorney was awful. She looked nervous half of the time. She was not very convincing. It was obvious that the kid was dealing. The drugs were individually packaged in ziplock bags which definitely reeks of “intent to sell”.

Here’s the scenario. The alleged dealer was in a car with a minor, when a cop car approached. The car flashed its lights and the cop asked them to step out of the car. When the alleged dealer stepped out, he allegedly threw the drugs under the car. During the course of the trial, the prosecutor never did prove that the drugs belonged to the dealer. They could’ve belonged to the passenger and the alleged dealer threw the drugs under the car for him.

During deliberations, all but two of the jurors were ready to declare him guilty because there was clearly an intent to sell. The two jurors stated their case, saying that we couldn’t convict on possession simply because there was an obvious attempt to sell. So, unanimously, we decided to let him go.

I’m still not happy about that decision. But we did have to follow the law. I still wish the prosecutor had done a better job.