Ordering a potential juror to write an essay on why she was a naughty citizen for failing to return to court the second day of jury selection is quirky, but ultimately fine. Banging out 1,000 words of mea culpa is an entirely reasonable chore to drop on someone.
But 30 pages is utterly bonkers. And yet that’s what’s happening to Juror No. 64, who missed a return court appearance because of a business trip, according to the ABA Journal:
On Jan. 12, Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Ural Glanville ordered the woman to write the essay with 10 primary sources and 10 secondary sources and to submit it within three weeks. It must be written in APA style, which is often used for academic documents. Software will be used to check for plagiarism.
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Is this woman a professor? Because otherwise this is an absurd punishment to drop on someone. Most people can’t throw together a 30-page research paper. Hell, most people don’t even know what APA style is! Is she going to get slapped with contempt of court for employing the Chicago style?[1]
Glanville said he wanted the focus to be on history “because years ago, people that looked like us couldn’t serve on a jury; it was prohibited.” Glanville and the juror are Black.
This is a serious subject, but a Columbia Law School lecturer wrote a law review article on the subject and she only managed to get 23 pages out of the subject.[2]
So the judge wants a potential juror to cobble together a research essay 7 pages longer than a professional legal academic could muster. This might be too tall an order.
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This is cruel and unusual in the best of circumstances, but the original report notes that the potential juror had actually informed jury services of the trip beforehand, making the punishment even more ill-conceived.
Because while important that Black folks are now allowed to serve on juries without unconstitutional obstacles, it’s just as important that Black women are now allowed to have the sort of business opportunities that led Juror No. 64 to have a pre-scheduled international business trip. That she’s out there making a living is its own marker of societal progress, so maybe we should cut her some slack when she tried to do the right thing.
Potential juror for Young Thug trial ordered to write 30-page essay after skipping return to court [ABA Journal]
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[1] As a New Yorker, I’ll note that this isn’t really a citation style… more like a casserole with citation style ingredients.
[2] If you’re reading this Juror No. 64, feel free to use this article as a literature review. A lot of good primary and secondary sources in there!
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.