into them like a tiger.n”What kind of setup is this?” he fumed. “If I didn’t knownbetter I’d swear the fix was in. And you,” he said scathingly tonthe juror who had dozed during the trial, “how dare you evenntalk when you slept through the testimony! That defendant isnan animal, guilty as sin. And you all know it.” He slammed hisnfist against the table as the whole room boiled and seethed.nBut they fairly tripped over one another in their rush to justifynthemselves. As I listened it began to dawn on me. Thesenwere decent people desperate to escape, and to escape quicklynand cheaply. They were reciting almost verbatim the ridiculousnlegal formulation tossed out by the defense—reasonablendoubt—to argue that since no one could know what had transpirednbetween the principals, reasonable doubt existed overnthe veracity of the giri’s account, ergo, the defendant must gonfree. As to the shooting, well, he might have passed the breakingnpoint. And if the police were chasing, it was natural in Patersonnfor a Hispanic male to run! And since all the issues werenso murky, since reasonable doubt existed down the line, we hadnno choice but to acquit.nThis, then, was the smoke screen, their intellectual underpinning,nsuch as it was. Over the course of four days, as Donnand I harangued, harassed, entreated, reasoned with, coaxed,ncajoled, scolded, and shamed them, the truth broke throughnin bits and pieces. It was not evidence but fear and guilt thatndrove them, and, in an ironic twist, proved a contention ofntheirs that people are victims of their environment. For thosenten jurors were victims of the permissive social environment ofnthe last 30 years, morally disarmed before criminals, naked untontheir enemies.nTheir visceral beliefs and true reasoning, from their ownnstatements, consisted of the following:nOne, fear for their physical safety. “Didn’t you seenthe way he [the defendant] looked at us? He knows whonwe are. If we convict him, he’ll come back and get usnlater.” Sheila, Mary, Nadine.nTwo, moral relativity of truth. “We have no right tonjudge [?!]. We were not privy to their lives. What’s truenfor us might not be true for them. Besides, the truth ultimatelyncan’t be known. Maybe she [the plaintiff] hadnit coming. And she did abandon her child.” Mary,nNadine, Frank.nThree, outright moral cowardice. “The responsibilitynfor putting someone away is too heavy and I don’t want itnon my conscience. We didn’t ask to be here.” Bill,nHenry, Nancy.nFour, racism and white guilt. “Those people livencompletely differently from us and shouldn’t be held tonour standards. They’re always mistreated and victimizednby society.” Mary, Nadine, Tom.nFive, lack of moral imagination, denial. “Evennthough we hear about it all the time, I can’t believensomeone would commit such violent acts without somenjustification. There are extenuating circumstances.”nKeith, Nadine, Mary, Bill, Nancy.nSix, fear of exercising power, misplaced conscience,nspinelessness. “I hate to think of myself as an enforcer fornthe state. Anyway, in the grand scheme of things it reallyndoesn’t matter what we do. Crime will be the samenwhether we convict or acquit.” Fred, Denise.nAnd so there it was. The excuses interlocked and reinforcednone another. Back and forth we went, hour by grueling hour,nday by weary day. The bailiff came in every few hours to try tonhurry us up. The judge had expected a fast decision and wasnangry we were taking so long. Throughout, Don was magnificent.nHe spoke more eloquently than any film of civic duty andncourage, of the need to stop the barbarians at the gate, of personalnresponsibility, of recognizing necessity, of the right of thenvictim to justice. One by one they attacked him with theirncraven arguments, only to wind up impaled on the sharp spearnof his logic. Gradually, imperceptibly at first, we began to turnnthem. From ten to two it became eight to four by the end ofnthe second day, 16 hours in. Then it was tied. Near the end ofnthe third day, eight to four in our favor. By midday Friday wenhad it: 12 out of 12 for conviction. Whether by force of argumentnor sheer exhaustion, we had it. We notified the judge,nand he sent word that the defense attorney intended to poll thenjury in open court. For certain that fox hoped to pry loose a jurornor two and get a mistrial should the verdict be against him.nIt was a smart tactic that almost worked. A crisis erupted in thenjury room. It was one thing for them to convict anonymously,nbut quite another to stand individually before God and everyonenand speak their vote aloud.nThey tottered on the brink of declaring a hung jury. ButnDon steeled them for the final leap in typical fashion. “Thenhell with the lawyer. Look him straight in the eye when younspeak. You can be certain you’ve done the right thing. I knownit, and I want you to know it.”nBack in the jury box, 12 men and women rose and confirmednthe verdict one by one, “Guilty on all charges.” The judge dismissednus. Sentence would be pronounced a month later, andnwhat it was I never learned. At the courtroom exit Don and Instopped and stood together for a moment after everyone hadnfiled out. We did not exchange a word. We looked hard atneach other, though, perhaps for memory’s sake, shook ournheads, grinned, and clasped hands, then went our separatenways.nSince then I have often wondered if the outcome would havenbeen different had Don not sat on that particular jury. Was thenMenendez jury like ours? Was Reginald Denny’s? Clearly it isndifficult in our society to distinguish evil, to call it by its truenname, punish it as justly as our wisdom allows, and deter it innthe future. Our faculty for ethical decision-making has beennwarped by moral relativism, psychologism, and alternativenlifestyles. There are no longer two sides to every story but 50,nall of equal value. Evil deeds are explained away with pseudoscientific,nlegalistic, psychosocial mumbojumbo. The jurors innour case were victims of this, their minds rigged in advance,nchanting formulas of fear like incantations. Perhaps this is a defensenmechanism, a reflexive recoiling from daily horrors. Butnin doing so we are colluding with the thugs in our midst by rationalizingntheir crimes and depredations.nThe time is long past for us to quit quaking and to accept responsibilitynfor judging and acting upon what is right and just,nwhether at school, in the street, or in the jury box. We mustnmake choices not to our liking. As J.R.R. Tolkien asks in ThenLord of the Rings, “How shall a man judge what to do in suchntimes?” “As he ever had judged,” said Aragorn. “Good and illnhave not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thingnamong Elves and Dwarves and another among men. It is anman’s part to discern them.”nJust so. <5>nnnMARCH 1995/27n