ROY EDROSO

Kings County Courthouse, Downtown Brooklyn

I was watching Law & Order the other night, trying to figure what (besides the weird, sick gleam that comes to Angie Harmon's eyes whenever she's about to put someone in jail) seemed wrong about it. Then I remembered Kings County Court.

The chambers and offices of Law & Order, while sometimes artfully cluttered, are generally clean and orderly, as if someone hosed everything down between takes. The characters are all energetic and focused: clerks attentive, lawyers histrionic, jurors thoughtful, defendants squirrely. The New York City criminal justice system on view here is basically like the ones on Matlock or Picket Fences, though with more oak paneling and kinkier crimes. (Would Sam Waterson be so out of place in the Oatmeal, Nebraska DA's office?) Serious people, efficient process, Justice's swift sword. That's what makes it fun to see all those people go to prison each week.

But they're missing something--a tonal thing. You can't smell the Lysol, hear the endless monkey-house background noise, feel the heavy, dreadful dullness of the system. The NYPD says it made 391,150 arrests in 2000. A lot of those people wind up in court. The system is crowded and the stress shows.

No, I've never gone before the bar of justice. But I've been to jury duty.

I spent two days there, most of it in a large, high-ceilinged hall crammed with huge benches set in double rows--sort of like a Protestant church designed by Albert Speer for the Department of Corrections. Large as the hall was, it inspired no sense of grandeur or the majesty of the law. It seemed tired unto death, in need of a paint job, scuffed and miserable. It had recently been washed--one could smell disinfectant--but the floors and walls retained the dull look of deep, uncleanable grime.

Instructions were minimal--a few sheets of paper, a short address by the deputy county clerk, and an informational film starring Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer ("Jury duty can be a pain in the you-know-what," said Ed, affecting jocularity; four or five people barked, affecting amusement). This was played on TV sets suspended from metal arms high up on columns, as in a bus depot. When it was over, the TVs played talk shows for the rest of the day.

In the early 1990s, Judge Judith Kaye's Jury Project reformed the jury selection process to bring a greater number and wider variety of citizens into service. They did away with most professional exemptions, and stepped up compliance efforts (meaning they come after you if you ignore your summons). I hear it's working well. But while I saw some suits, most of my colleagues seemed like old-school New York lumpen, called up from loading docks, storefronts and domino tables. Many had been on jury duty before, some several times.

They had newspapers, sandwiches, electronic games; some had brought seat cushions. One veteran, thin streaks of black hair painting his alarmingly steep skull, told me that this was the best time of year to get picked because "all the judges are on vacation in Florida" so they were more likely to let you go. When an officer directed "anyone who doesn't understand a word I say" to go to the next room, an old Puerto Rican man laughed. "They all go on jury," he said. "First time I am here, I say I no speak English. They say 'bullshit.'"

In most places where one is forced to wait, the passing of time creates anxiety--as in an airport when a flight's delayed, or a doctor's office when things aren't moving as quickly as they should. People get restless, wander in small circles, play with vending machines or water bubblers, and take on a watchful look. But at the courthouse, the passing of time led only to torpor -- everyone was waiting, but no one seemed to know or care what came next.

On my second day I was impaneled--called with other jurors to be questioned to determine our fitness for a particular case. A few dozen of us sat on folding chairs in a little room with yellow walls and cracked linoleum. A lone wall fan oscillated; a sign under the fan read ATTENTION JURORS & ATTORNEYS/PLEASE REFRAIN FROM ADJUSTING THE FANS/IF YOU REQUIRE ASSISTANCE, PLEASE SEE A JURY CLERK.

Eventually a judge came in and talked us through the case--1994, hole in floor, slip and fall, claim against landlord. He advised us that "it is not in your interest to try and get out of this. This is a civil case, and if you get out of it they may put you on a criminal case." He was joined by the two lawyers in case, who shifted us around the room so our seating would correspond to the charts they carried on paddles.

"Anyone here have a problem with someone exercising their constitutional right to go to court over an injury?" the prosecuting attorney asked.

A few people expressed misgivings. One woman, black, middle-aged, in sober dress and with a gentle voice, simply said, "I'm just not comfortable sitting in judgment."

"But," said the lawyer, "wouldn't you want other people to be able to serve on a jury if you were on trial, if you needed it in a case like this?"

"No," the woman said.

Soon she was discharged, as was I (for which of my many quirks, I can't say for sure), from this case and from jury duty. I was happy to be out, as I expect she was.

But that evening and many times thereafter, I thought about that woman's reply. Was she just trying to get out of the case fast by being flatly contrary? Was she showing compassion for the people who would be forced to spend all day trapped in a beaurocratic miasma for her own trial? Or had she just gotten the idea that trial by jury (a concept, Ed Bradley had told us, that dates back to Aristotle, and a tradition that dates back to the Magna Carta) wasn't really worth the time?