Two days ago I came across a blog entry by SF writer Jim Hines on the subject that April is Rape Awareness Month — the guy had been a rape crisis counselor a while back — and there were several worthwhile comment-responses to his post.
Yesterday I answered a summons for jury duty. I’d been dreading it because of the tedium involved in the waiting for jury selection, and the time taken away from work. Then I bucked up and figured whatever came of it might be something I could use in my writing. So the seventy-plus of us summons respondents sat around in the jury room, biding time in our individual manners.
A judge gave a sort of introductory pep-talk, and promised us no grand jury selections would be made at the time. We all sighed in collective relief.
After about an hour and a half, the first round came. Thirty names were called out, and thirty folks stood and went to the courtroom designated for the jury selection for that trial — I think it was a civil suit, but I’m not certain.
So the rest of us waited a while longer, but not much. More names then were called out, mine amongst them, and the forty of us then filed out to go upstairs. Once a cluster of us were stuffed into one of the elevators, we unhappily noticed that the floor we were going to was labelled ‘grand jury’ — I had an uneasy flutter until we remembered, again collectively, that we’d been promised no grand jury selections for that day.
But it was going to be a criminal case, all the same.
The forty of us filed into the courtroom and then played musical benches until we were seated in the ‘random’ order the computer system had made. We were given another sort of briefing, and then we rose for the entrance of his honour. After the introductions of his honour, the court recorder, the attorneys, and the defendant, we again sat.
Then his honour spoke to us potential jurors for a few moments, explaining the process of the law, and the ‘assumption of innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt’. He told us that some cases, though, could prove intolerable for some jury candidates because of personal beliefs, prejudices, and experiences –
And that’s when we learnt the defendant was a convicted sex offender. He was in there for failing to register himself as a released sex offender, and for failing to inform the correct authorities of a recent change of address –
I was in the same room as a convicted sex offender — which in some deep part of my mind and my psyche immediately translated into ‘rapist’.
Palpitations hit me, like my heart was trying to beat its way out of its cage, and I couldn’t calm myself. My mouth went dry and my hands began to shake uncontrollably. My PTSD had been triggered,….
I was completely and unpleasantly surprised, and significantly incapacitated, by this very visceral, gut reaction.
His honour then asked if any of us would have difficulties with being fair and impartial with this case — before I’d even finished consciously processing his question, my hand was in the air –
The body remembers.
No matter how desperately the conscious mind may deny, no matter how deeply the subconscious mind may try to bury, the body always remembers.
But I had to wait to state my own case as I sat in the third of the four rows. He politely asked these folks, one by one, to give sound reason why they should be excused from this case.
The first one had a husband and a son who both had been convicted of sex crimes — I don’t even want to think about her home life. The second had a family member who’d been victim of a sex crime. The third had strong religious convictions that precluded even a pretense at impartiality. The fourth’s neighbour had been a victim of a sex crime.
And then his honour pointed at my raised hand.
It simply wasn’t possible for me to announce my reasons in front of all those strangers. What had happened to me — what had been done to me repeatedly when I was a small child, and repeatedly during my adolescence — was not of my doing, but I just couldn’t blurt it out to a roomful of strangers, strangers who were watching and listening.
People look at you differently, once they know,….
I asked his honour that I be allowed to speak to him discreetly. He agreed, and the two attorneys and I approached the bench. My legs wobbled beneath me as I tried to walk instead of running the way I wanted, as I passed the defendant. I was shaking so badly all over that I could barely speak to tell them that I am a sex abuse survivor, and that it was absolutely impossible for me to be fair and impartial.
My agitation must’ve been evident. Both attorneys immediately agreed I shouldn’t be subjected to this, and I’m grateful for that kindness. His honour showed concern and asked if I needed to sit down, or if I’d like a glass of water. I declined as politely and respectfully as I was able at the moment, and his honour then excused me from this duty and told me to return to the jury room. I thanked him and fled that courtroom, not giving a damn how it might’ve looked to anyone.
I went to the elevator and pushed for the first floor, leaning my head against the cool wall above the elevator buttons, shaking, trying to calm myself. The doors finally opened and I stepped into the car — but it stopped at the next floor down, and three other people stepped in. Once again my body responded without my conscious thought — it didn’t want to be in that small and enclosed space with anyone else — and I stepped out before the doors had a chance to close.
I stood there a few moments, embarrassed by my primal and animal-like fear reactions, and angry — at whom, I don’t know — then decided to walk down the remaining flights of stairs [an old-style atrium staircase instead of a claustrophobic stairwell] to burn off some of the flight-response collecting in my muscles.
Back on the first floor, I returned to the jury room as instructed, and just blindly walked in past the receptionist. She called out to me, as I’d failed to check in with her as I was supposed to — I went to her desk and apologised for the breech in protocol. She scanned my temporary ID badge, checked it against some data on her monitor, and told me his honour had excused me from any further jury selections that day.
By this time a kind of numbness had set in — I thanked the receptionist and walked toward the lobby and the main doors of the courthouse, fumbling with my cellphone to text my S.O. for our rendezvous. My messages, I’ll admit with some chagrin, were brief to the point of being terse — I just wasn’t up to typing out full conversations at the moment.
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