Justice

I spent last month serving as a juror on a felony trial here in the Bronx. It was my second time, as I’d previously served on a shooting case in 2012, so I wasn’t coming in blind to the process. But I had no idea what was coming, or that it’d be one of the most profoundly impactful experiences of my life.

I’ll be thinking about and processing this experience for quite some time, but a few days after we rendered our verdict, I’ve arranged my top five thoughts. I figured I’d share them while they’re fresh.

5. It was really important to get this case right

This was a kidnapping and rape case from an incident back in 2022, and it was prominent enough to have gotten press attention at the time. (Of course, all of us on the jury including me had no knowledge of any of the information in this or any other news article, either at the time or at any point until after we rendered our verdict and were legally free to learn more about the incident and case.)

It was a harrowing story that involved a woman being lured by her attacker to a burned-down, abandoned building - all of which was caught on surveillance video. She was then held against her will and tied up for four days without food, bathroom access (she used a bucket), or any clothing. The attacker repeatedly assaulted - physically and sexually - the victim, and we saw the evidence. She finally escaped out of the second-story window onto the awning, and we witnessed the rescue from police body camera footage.

This case was a month of my life, and by the end we knew the events and the people involved intimately. It was a critically important responsibility to get it right - justice for both the attacker and the victim, deciding someone’s freedom, and being judges of the truth.

When most of us get a jury summons in the mail, I think our immediate reaction is irritation. Why me, why now, why all of this. But then you get assigned to a case where you’re deciding on justice, freedom, and the truth, and it all clicks. This was an important responsibility.

4. Life is hard and fragile

“Yeah, no shit, Ronjan”, you’re saying. Maybe it’s trite to say, but this case was an important reminder for me.

Both the attacker and victim were unhoused, and thus part of a largely invisible cohort in the city. The attacker demonstrated a pattern of finding and staying in abandoned buildings, while the victim relied on her network and community to find places to sleep each night. While New York City has a right to shelter mandate in place, it’s clear that many in the city find other ways to make it through the day, working together as a community.

The victim was also addicted to drugs and we could see the devastation and desperation that caused. We heard vivid descriptions of the physical and mental pain of withdrawal, the most detailed accounts I’d ever experienced. Thus, the victim was part of a second community, this one of fellow addicts across the city trying to help each other get through the day.

On one hand - these two communities likely kept the victim alive for years, literally supporting her through extremely difficult times, and that’s at least slightly positive. On the other hand - with both homeless and drug epidemics hitting basically every part of the country, wow do we need to do a better job, systematically, of taking care of our fellow neighbors who have fallen on extremely difficult times.

I go back to how invisible these communities are, including my own reactions when I’m walking through the city. I was struck by body cam footage of police officers standing around prior to the rescue, knowing intuitively they’d be acting with more urgency for a victim who wasn’t unhoused. I don’t know what my personal response will be to this going forward, but I hope I have one.

3. While most of the trial experience is wonky and methodical, this one had some wild moments

The vast majority of both trials I’ve sat on involved lawyers building the right foundation with witnesses in order to get exhibits into evidence. It’s technical, it’s tactical, it’s tedious, it’s taxing.

That said, this trial broke the mold in ways that my first one didn’t. It seems like in every case, the lawyers and the judge remind the jury up front that “this isn’t going to be like TV”, but we had several moments that were like TV.

A woman entered the courtroom during live testimony and started getting in an argument with the legal clerk. The judge had to speak up and throw her out of the courtroom! We didn’t get an “order! order in the court!” decree with gavel banging, but it was pretty close.

While we were in the hallway waiting for the trial to start one day, we heard our court officer’s radio call for backup. There was a fight in another courtroom, and the officer with us yelled, “fuck!”, and made a run for the other courtroom. He told us later that happens a lot. Who knew!

The victim testified in our trial, and the first day she was on the stand she was high. She pleaded the Fifth Amendment several times during cross examination, and she then left the courthouse, forcing us to adjourn the trial for several days until she returned.

Finally, the defendant actually took the witness stand for a brief statement. He was enough of a disruptive presence that we were warned by our court officer, “if you hear me say ‘jury, go!’, drop everything and follow me out of the courtroom”. He refused to answer his own lawyer’s questions, but because he took the stand, he opened himself up to several hours of cross-examination by the DA. I never thought I’d see the day.

2. It’s hard being on a jury

I already knew this from my first trial. That experience lasted ten weeks, including intense deliberations where we entered with a 9-2 vote (1 undecided) and took two weeks to get to unanimous. Getting 12 people to agree on anything is hard. Getting 12 people to agree on a matter of this importance is much harder.

But I’m not even talking about that here. And I’m not talking about the time commitment either. Yes, it’s incredibly inconvenient, the schedules are unpredictable, and it comes with potential financial losses and career sacrifice.

But being on a jury is hard because it’s physically, mentally, and emotionally draining.

Physically, you’re sitting in one place, eyes locked on lawyers, judges, and witnesses, with no real agency for breaks, no ability to stretch or stand, no real mobility at all.

Mentally, you’re coming into a situation with absolutely no knowledge, and then you’re bombarded with narratives, details, and perspectives that conflict with each other, and you’re the one who has to make sense of it.

And emotionally, you’re placing yourself in the shoes of the attacker and the victim, trying to think like they would think, feel what they would feel, and experience what they would experience.

With the evidence we saw and the testimony we heard, I had repeated nightmares about the case. The scariest of them involved watching my own son being kidnapped on the same surveillance cameras that we saw in our incident. That was the most panicked wake-up moment of my life, I legitimately thought I was having a heart attack.

And when the trial had days off, I attempted to step back in at work. I don’t know if anyone is wired for that kind of code switching, but I am decidedly not. It’s impossible for me to go from 100% plugged into a nightmare situation like this to thinking about basketball video games without a buffer in between.

With the trial now over, it’s still on my mind. It’s still a part of me. And it will take some time to get back to normal.

1. It’s amazing being on a jury

I met 15 (NYC juries have 4 alternates) of the best people I will ever know last month, and we solved a problem that mattered, really, truly mattered, together. I honestly can’t think of anything cooler than that.

This was a group that felt instantly comfortable together. It didn’t take long for us to have friendly nicknames about each other - “Lasagna”, “Miami”, “Quiet Guy”. We ribbed the gentleman who always showed up late. We had debates about chivalry. We were warned by the court officer for being too loud in the jury room. We became a family.

We’d never have known each other if not for our commitment to the judge that we could be fair and follow the law. It sounds easy on paper, but it’s a high bar. And all of us cleared it.

We came from all over the Bronx, from all walks of life, from every profession and life background. We were a diverse group in every way you can define diversity, and we were better for it. I am usually the darkest or among the darkest people in most rooms that I’m in, especially in the workplace, and I wasn’t in this room. It made me feel happy, made me feel whole.

It can be easy to get caught up in life, but I hope we as a group prioritize staying in touch and having jury-unions every once in a while. We’re a special bunch. And it was a special experience.