Popular Cultural Phenomenon and Their Affects on the Civic Duties of American Citizens Part I

a.k.a My Two Weeks as a Grand Juror

Yep. The Champ was once again called upon by the great State of NewYork to do his civic duty by participating in the justice system. For 2 weeks I was charged with the task of determining whether or not there was sufficent evidence in any given situation to support the decision to send alleged defendants to trial. The actions and deliberations of the grand jury are secret and protected by the laws of the State of New York, so I can not discuss them in detail. I can discuss many of the peripheral experiences over the last two weeks.

Day one began with me attempting to recover from the illness du jour that has seemed to plague the entire city in the past weeks. Everyone is coughing, sneezing, and dead tired. There's not a doctor in the City that's not claiming that this is anything less than "something viral that's going around that will burn itself out in about a week . . .". This translated to The Champ doing his best to fight sleep during orientation. No disrespect to Ed Bradley, who does a fine job as the narrator on the orientation video, but it was at best difficult to stay awake when I was not coughing. Turing the lights out was the death blow. I'm pretty sure that I did not snore (which is more than I can say for most folks, more on that later) so I am claiming victory there. Once the lights were back on, I had a chance to assess my fellow grand jurors. I remember most of their faces from a couple of weeks ago when we were all picked. Seemed like your typical New York crowd, a number of Jews, a couple of Hispanics that didn't speak English so well, a couple of gay guys that were too sexy for jury duty, a guy that was overtly gay to everyone but himself and the"girlfriend" that could not see the forest, a Wall street junior executive, an an Electronica DJ/Producer, 2 older Black women (one thatsat next to me, more on her later) and this really creepy dude thatwill end up in front of a grand jury and possibly on the cover of all of the local news papers.

Between orientation and cases, we were pretty much free to do what we wanted provided that we were not too far from the Jury room. Most people played on their Treos or Blackberrys or read the paper. The woman that sat next to me read a book titled "Dat Gangsta Shit". I knew from that moment that she would provide many interesting tid bits for your reading pleasure. Once the cases resumed, it was obvious that there were some people in the room that watch too much Law and Order and CSI. As stated, the purpose of the grand jury is not to decide whether a party is guilty or innocent, just whether or not the evidence presented is sufficient for there to be a trial. There was one guy in particular that was really into the whole process. He asked so many questions of one witness that it seemed as if he were trying to get the guy to go Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. When we returned from lunch that day, it seemed that there were a number of folks that would not be out done as far as badgering witnesses (most of whom were disinterested parties) as if they were going to get the Sam Jackson from A Time To Kill response. Aside from the fact that I was hacking and tired, it was frustrating to have so much time wasted. It wasn't about guilt on innocence, just whether it was probable that a crime could have been committed based on the evidence. The major positive here, one of the court reporters was HELLA cute.

The rest of the week progressed with more over-questioning of witnesses and over thinking deliberations. It might just be me, but I don't think there are too many questions to ask when we see a videotape of a guy stuffing items into his bag or into his pockets and then making a run for it out of the store. Seemed pretty cut and dry as far as evidence needed to go to trial. We had a smaller crowd than normal on Thursday of week 1 since it was the first day of Passover. It seemed to be a fairly slow day as far as cases went as well; I guess crime does take holidays. One of the gentleman decided that on this day he would celebrate his Jewish heritage by wearing a yarmulke and eating matzo in the morning. In the afternoon he'd add gifilte fish to the menu. For those of you wondering, yes gefilte fish smells like it sounds.

Of greater note here, the woman next to me showed that she had more talent than picking out the best books on the ghetto book table in every hood USA (she began the week reading a book entitled "Dat Gangsta Shit" Followed by "Skin I'm In"). She had this little bag that seems to have ALL of the snacks in the world in them. And there were not just your run of the mill snacks; these were the '07 and '08 snacks. She had them new and improved snacks that haven't even hit the market at large. More impressively than the fact that she had snacks before they hit the streets were the sheer amount that she was able to get into that little bag. On one day, she had two cans ofjuice, an apple, a banana, 3 candy bars (that I've NEVER seen before) a bowl of stew (that smelled real good, it cleared my sinuses right up), a bottle of water, and some little pies. This bag was no morethan 6"x6"x6"; how did she get all that stuff in there?? Is a function of '07 and '08 snacks the ability to shrink while being stored? It was like a magical bag that had no bottom. The only thingthat had me more confused than her mastery of physics that defied conventional logic, was how someone with the ability to pack so many futuristic godies into such a small space not have a single piece of gum or a breath mint in her magic sack? Yes people, the Snack Lady had hot breath. Given the dimensions of the room and our seating arrangements, I got much more intimate with her breath than I ever needed or wanted.

On the court side of things, it was fairly amazing to see how this part of the system worked. I was most amazed at how full of shit some of the cops that came as witnesses were. For the most part, they had their stories together, but there was one group of cops in particular that were so full of shit that I could not believe that the Assistant District Attorney assigned to their case did not tell them to blow it out of their asses. That was at least until I got to encounter the alleged perpetrator in this case. The way that it works, the accused gets the option to address the Grand Jury in his or her own defense. They get to make a statement and then are questioned by the A.D.A. This one guy spoke for 2.5 hours and gave about 10 minutes worth of relevant information. We all had an idea of how we felt before hand, mostly because the arresting and other officers were so full of shit and did not have their stories together and how sloppily the A.D.A presented her case. This guy helped and hurt his own case. By actually seeing him in the flesh, we got to see how he could annoy the life out of cops to the degree that they would want to screw him over since a potential medical condition prevented them from physically dealing with him while at the same time he presented information that we later asked the cops about and they had to add to their stories or otherwise address. With the amount of time they had, the least the cops could have done was get their stories together. One officer came in and gave about 4 different answers to the same question. Given that this guy was a complete and utter degenerate, I can't be too mad at them for wanting to screw him over, but they could have atleast been thorough in their attempt. It was kinda scary as I could not help but wonder how many people are in the system or being screwed by it because of sloppy cops.

It was also an eye opener to see how bad some of the A.D.As were as attorneys. I mean, I am sure that some of them were at the bottom of their law school classes, hence being over worked for their 30K per year, but some of them made me wonder if they went to law school at all. 2 A.D.As in particular were so bad that I wondered if they went to college. Worse than the A.D.As, were most of the courts appointed defense attorneys. The accused were allowed to bring their attorneys with them, but the attorneys were not allowed to address the Jury orthe A.D.A, they could only confer with their client. Most of them stared into space blankly. On guy in particular looked around the room as if he were admiring the paint job (the room was painted flat white, what was to admire?) or having an acid flashback and was trying to determine where he was. It was sad to say the least. My advice to all future convicts: Stash enough money to pay for an attorney.


How little the A.D.As and defense attorneys are paid was evident in how they dressed. I was unaware that polyester was still used in clothing as much as I experience over the last 2 weeks. I feared for my life one day when we had this really hyperactive A.D.A who kept moving around the room. His suit looked like it was going to combust.There was a fellow big and tall gentleman that I desperately wanted to introduce to some of my clothiers as well; there are few things that bother me more than a poorly dressed fat man. His shoe game was weak as well. He could absolutely stand to holla at my boys Cole Haan andKenneth Cole. There was this one A.D.A that was kinda cute, but her weave was horribly ratty. I am all for easy to manage hair and all, but if you are going to go the weave route, have the decency to keep it up. She must have noticed that I was staring at her ratty weave as she came in the next day with it looking a little less ratty. She was big breasted and had a nice smile, but her shoe game was unforgivably weak; alas the champ did not holla. There was another black female A.D.A that had a ratty weave and weak shoe game, but was not as cute as her colleague. Did they go to a place and get a group rate? If they did, why don't the males apply this same theory to the Men's Warehouse or Kenneth Cole? Are ratty weaves the new pink? Are ratty weaves and weak shoe games climbing the list of things plaguing the black community such as teenage pregnancy, criminal recidivism and high school drop outs? My fellow Grand Jurors were not innocent of fashion crimes. The Wall Street Guy spent the first week looking like he stepped out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue, and the second week looking like he had been drugged. My favorite outfit of his in his non-work week had to be the day he came in wearing a smedium beige sweater (I was concerned about being able to see his heart beat), some ratty camouflage pants and some cowboy boots that he had no less than10 years. Snack Lady often wore outfits that were questionable to saythe least. Between her outfits, "literature" and overall demeanor, I am sure that she was 45, lived with her 30 year old daughter and her15 year old granddaughter and they all shared clothes.

I will truncate this entry here as it is getting to Count of Monte Cristo proportions. Next week, we will go into what not to wear when you are a defendant, creating a stronger network (a.k.a politickin') and "he was named WHAT?!?!!?!?!".