- Jean Lachat/Sun-Times
- Good seats are available, but not for me.
Amid the usual thrilling mail last week—a service reminder from a plumber, a solicitation from a needy credit card company, an offer of AAA membership—to my delight I received a jury summons.
The work of a jury seems fascinating. A group of strangers of varied backgrounds and temperaments are asked to try to arrive at consensus without assaulting each other. They handle their task with the utmost gravity, although anecdotal evidence suggests they’re more apt to reach a verdict early on Friday afternoons, with the weekend beckoning.
Besides, Courtroom 302 is so ten years ago. And I think that’s past the statute of limitations, so I shouldn’t have to mention it.
I made it to voir dire once, years ago, also at 26th Street. Voir dire is the job-interview stage: lawyers for both sides quiz prospective jurors in the courtroom, searching for signs of bias. I’d yet to think of doing a book about the courthouse at this point, but I’d already written a few stories about the place. The prosecutor looked at my juror form and asked me what I’d done lately for the Reader. “A profile of Judge [William] Cousins upstairs,” I told him.
