Story for the Week
I have never been selected for jury duty. I have been called for jury duty a handful of times. The closest I’ve come to being selected was sitting in the courtroom. And contrary to most people I know, I would love to serve on a jury.
The first time I received a jury summons, I was away at college, so I was excused. The second time I received a notice, I had moved literally a handful of months before to a new state, so I was excused. A couple of times, I received the summons to call in and didn’t have to report. One time, my group was called to sit in for jury selection. The first 12 people to sit in the jury box and answer questions were selected. The rest of us went home.
Another time, I was selected for district court. That one was a bit different. I was told to report for a full week, but after lunch on the third day, I was sent home. The case I would have been on settled over lunch. I do have to say, the jury waiting room for district court…definitely nicer than regular court. They had comfortable chairs, tables with chargers so I was able to use my laptop, vending machines.
The last time I was called for jury duty, when my group was called, it was to receive my check and go home. I didn’t even make it to lunch.
Here’s the thing though…I would LOVE to serve on a jury. I’ve heard from friends who have served on juries that you spend a lot of time waiting around, a lot of time being bored. I don’t care lol. I have always thought it would be fascinating. Clearly, it’s not what you see on television or in the movies (although those scenes are very cool—think A Few Good Men or any given episode of Criminal Minds or Law and Order). I know that it’s not. I just want to do it, just once, which is probably why it will never happen. 😂
One of my favorite courtroom scenes comes in A Time to Kill, a movie based on the first novel by real-life attorney John Grisham, which I recently rewatched with my daughter and one of her friends. A 10-year-old black girl in Mississippi is brutally beaten, raped, and left for dead by two local white men.
Her father, played by Samuel L. Jackson, recalls a similar case where the defendants were found not guilty and decides to take the law into his own hands. He guns down both men inside the courthouse in front of dozens of witnesses. When his fate is left in the hands of an all-white jury, he tells his lawyer to figure out what would convince him to vote not guilty if he were on the jury. When his lawyer, played brilliantly by Matthew McConaughey, gets to the summation, he finds the words.
“What is it in us that seeks the truth? Is it our minds or is it our hearts?
“I set out to prove a black man could receive a fair trial in the south, that we are all equal in the eyes of the law. That’s not the truth, because the eyes of the law are human eyes—yours and mine—and until we can see each other as equals, justice is never going to be evenhanded. It will remain nothing more than a reflection of our own prejudices, so until that day we have a duty under God to seek the truth, not with our eyes and not with our minds where fear and hate turn commonality into prejudice, but with our hearts—where we don’t know better.
“Now I wanna tell you a story. I’m gonna ask y’all to close your eyes while I tell you this story. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to yourselves.
“This is a story about a little girl walking home from the grocery store one sunny afternoon. I want you to picture this little girl.
“Suddenly a truck races up. Two men jump out and grab her. They drag her into a nearby field and they tie her up, and they rip her clothes from her body. Now they climb on, first one then the other, raping her, shattering everything innocent and pure—vicious thrusts—in a fog of drunken breath and sweat. And when they’re done, after they killed her tiny womb, murdered any chance for her to bear children, to have life beyond her own, they decide to use her for target practice. So they start throwing full beer cans at her. They throw ’em so hard that it tears the flesh all the way to her bones—and they urinate on her.
“Now comes the hanging. They have a rope; they tie a noose. Imagine the noose pulling tight around her neck and a sudden blinding jerk. She’s pulled into the air and her feet and legs go kicking and they don’t find the ground. The hanging branch isn’t strong enough. It snaps and she falls back to the earth. So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck, and drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge and pitch her over the edge. And she drops some 30 feet down to the creek bottom below.
“Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body, soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood—left to die.
“Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl.
“Now imagine she’s white.”
I know this is not real jury duty! And it’s definitely not every day jury duty.
I still want to be on a jury. 🤷🏻♀️
I recently finished an upcoming non-fiction book by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey. They tell a number of stories of people wrongfully convicted and sent to death row. These men and women certainly did not receive fair trials, especially since none of them should have been arrested to begin with. Our justice system generally works, but it’s not perfect because people are human and flawed. I’d like to think that I could be objective enough to see the truth, but these cases demonstrate how deceitful and biased our justice system can be.
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐
4 Stars for Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey
363 pages
Publisher: Doubleday
Publication Date: October 15, 2024
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Doubleday.
Publisher’s Description
John Grisham is known worldwide for his bestselling novels, but it’s his real-life passion for justice that led to his work with Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries, the first organization dedicated to exonerating innocent people who have been wrongly convicted. Together they offer an inside look at the many injustices in our criminal justice system.
A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty, there is very little room to prove doubt. These ten true stories shed light on Americans who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, and decades of their lives to prison while the guilty parties remained free. In each of the stories, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey recount the dramatic hard-fought battles for exoneration. They take a close look at what leads to wrongful convictions in the first place and the racism, misconduct, flawed testimony, and corruption in the court system that can make them so hard to reverse.
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I have been a fan of John Grisham for a long time. I didn’t discover his first novel, A Time to Kill, until it’s second release after The Firm and The Pelican Brief (which I devoured) shot up the bestseller lists. Experts say to write what you know. Grisham certainly knows the law since he was a practicing attorney long before he retired to write full-time.
In this non-fiction work, Grisham teams up with Jim McCloskey, retired founder of Centurion, a non-profit organization dedicated to seeking the overturning of wrongful convictions. The two authors outline the facts of five cases each, telling in detail how mistakes were made and sometimes outright lies were coerced. Even in the face of clear evidence of innocence, some of the convicted never were exonerated. One of the men was even executed for something he didn’t do.
As I read the first chapter of Framed, I felt shocked at how badly the case was bungled, at how manipulative the police and the prosecutors were. It made me realize what lengths people will sometimes go to in order to avoid admitting that they made a mistake or how focused they get on one suspect and ignore all evidence that proves they have it wrong. I kept thinking it couldn’t get worse, but it always got worse.
Then I read the second chapter and the third. Chapter after chapter, case after case, all with a common theme—law enforcement and prosecutors so focused on manipulating the narrative to the detriment of the truth. It made me sad…and shocked…and angry that these kinds of things happen. In all of the cases, clear evidence is uncovered and ignored, sometimes for decades. This book is a testament to the fact that our justice system is far from perfect.
I don’t know that I could continue to fight as long as some of these defendants did. In so many of the cases, we read about confessions that were given just to stop the hours upon hours of interrogation, about suspects so sleep-deprived they start to believe they actually did what they were accused of. I cannot imagine being in their situations, let alone knowing how I would handle them.
I would never say that all police are bad. I won’t even say most are bad. Plenty of my friends and family include people in law enforcement. My grandmother was a clerk in the Circuit Court, so we learned very young what to do if we were ever stopped by the police. (And no, it was not to give her name. 😉) Knock on wood, I have never had a negative interaction with law enforcement. I also recognize that I come from a place of privilege to be able to say that.
I am not a huge reader of non-fiction. I sought this one out because John Grisham’s name is on the cover. It is worth the time you will spend on it. It can seem convoluted at times, but I feel like that’s the nature of these cases. Lover of true crime? Pick this one up. Believe in “truth, justice, and the American way”? Pick this one up. Think that these things could never happen to you? Definitely pick this one up. You won’t be sorry you did.
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