Sometimes I don't know I've had a useful thought until someone else articulates it. Here's a question I've mused on from time to time but never thought to write about: If Americans are fascinated by jury duty, and my time blogging here has convinced me that they are, why is the role of a juror in a movie or television show almost always a nonspeaking part?
Those silent TV jurors
There's "Twelve Angry Men," the famous exception, and then there's the rule. From "Perry Mason" to "Matlock" to "Boston Legal," from "Witness For The Prosecution" to "My Cousin Vinny," there they sit, the silent jurors. They're ethnically diverse, well-groomed, attentive, financially comfortable -- and completely passive. It's a phenomenon explored in Marquette Law professor David Papke's article, "12 Angry Men is Not an Archetype: Reflections on the Jury in Contemporary Popular Culture," available here on SSRN. Prof. Papke is willing to draw conclusions from the pattern:
I suggest that while 12 Angry Men invites us to envision the jury as a fundamental building block for American life, the standard contemporary portrayal of the jury is instead a sobering suggestion of how we have actually come to see juries in the context of our increasingly attenuated and formalistic democracy.
It's an interesting article for the reader, and it must have been great fun to write. Imagine the popcorn you'd consume, doing the research that would qualify you to write this paragraph:
Classic films from the 1950s such Witness for the Prosecution (1957), I Want to Live (1958), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), and The Young Philadelphians (1959) featured courtroom trials.5 More recent Hollywood dramas such as The Accused (1988), A Few Good Men (1992), and A Time to Kill (1996) as well as comedies such as My Cousin Vinny (1992), Liar, Liar (1997), and Legally Blonde (2001) continue the trend. On television, series such as L. A. Law (NBC; 1986-94), Ally McBeal (FOX; 1997-2002), and The Practice (ABC; 1997- 2004) always portrayed one or more of their lawyer characters litigating in each episode, and current series such as Law & Order (NBC; 1990-present), Boston Legal (ABC; 2004- present), and Shark (CBS; 2006-present) do the same.
Art imitates life, or part of it
The lack of curiosity among film and television writers about jury duty is odd, but in one way it's completely consistent with the jury-duty experience most people report. Few jurors experience the high drama of, say, the jury that convicted Illinois governor George Ryan. Instead, by far the majority of people who report for jury duty aren't selected for juries at all -- so their day in the courthouse really is silent, passive, and individual. I've talked about a few jury blogs describing this dreary experience, and more examples come up all the time. Last week brought a good one, when law student Luke Gilman reported for duty. Forgive me for quoting a cite to myself:
I had jury duty today. It was originally scheduled for February but I rescheduled to fit it in the pathetically short break between our summer and fall semesters. Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m a student so I guess I could claim an exemption, but I didn’t want to get out of it. Far from the typical reluctant juror claiming rampant racism or homophobia to get out of jury duty, I saw it as a rare chance to see things from the other side of the jury box. I thought I might even join the ranks of the blogging jurors sometimes featured in Anne Reed's Deliberations. Alas, it was not to be.
I spent 4 hours sitting in the juror holding pen, waiting for my number to be called. When it finally was called it was only to tell me that my services would not be needed. Could I come back tomorrow I asked? “Um, no,” I was told by a fairly incredulous officer, “you’re free to go, you got a release.” Sigh. I don’t think there would have been any shortage of volunteers to trade places among the 50 or so people who went ahead of me. Oh well.
His day had all the excitement of a TV jury's.
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Source note: I'm glad for the chance to cite Luke Gilman's terrific law blog, The Blawgraphy. I first noticed it in June, when he mused on the questions that might have been asked in a voir dire in the Duke lacrosse case, and ended up with as clear a statement of how experiences are likely to shape jurors' attitudes as any I've seen. Right now he's observing the conversation several blogs are having about the billable hour, and translating it into advice for law students.
(Photo by Soon at http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomecho/298010188/; license details there.)
