Academy of Local Politics

The DailyRecord.Com published the following story of one person's jury duty. The story is worth repeating.

Patti Bilinkas said she taped that call to jury duty on the mirror so she would not lose it, afraid someone would come and arrest her if it were misplaced, afraid she would not get there on time.

Now, after spending a day in July as a member of a Superior Court jury pool in Morristown, Bilinkas said, she will take that jury notice into her eighth-grade English class at Wharton's MacKinnon Middle School.

"I'll be able to say to them -- and some of them are becoming American citizens -- this is one of the things you get to do as a citizen," she said. "It is a privilege."

Instead of drudgery, Bilinkas said, she found camaraderie, new friends, and more.

She also found a profound sense of appreciation for the American justice system, the professionalism of the court employees, and a deeper knowledge of what her country stands for.

She said her day as a juror brought home two profound beliefs: that she agreed with Superior Court Judge Stephen F. Smith when he told the prospective jurors that the American justice system is the best in the world.

And she also believes that the sacrifices of all our parents, family members, friends and neighbors in all our nation's wars were made so that she, Patti Bilinkas, could sit in the "comfy blue chairs" of the jury room in the Morris County Courthouse and serve on a panel that might decide which party in a personal injury auto accident lawsuit was right.

"When I went outside, it was a beautiful day, and I wanted to grab that American flag and wave it around," she said.

For 37 years, Bilinkas had managed to avoid jury duty.

Then a year ago, the notice came. She thinks it had something to do with her getting a new photo driver's license, something else she had avoided for years.

At that time, she said, her school superintendent asked whether she could postpone the service, and she did. But this year, there was no way out.

"I worried about it for a whole year," Bilinkas said. "When I told people I had jury duty, they would roll their eyes." Only one person told her they had enjoyed it.

Jury duty.

It conjures up the worst thoughts about things like root canals and traffic jams, and pairs up with all those thoughts that come from a lack of knowledge or experience.

It is one of those government things that we are supposed to dislike because, well, it's a government thing. Can't someone else do it?

Bilinkas admitted that she was ready to hate the experience.

Instead, she said, she was ready to do it again the next day.

"I wanted to plunge my hand into the air and say, 'Pick me, pick me.'" she said.

It is all pretty simple in the end, she said.

"It's the right thing to do," she said.

As she talks about her time as a juror, Bilinkas said she recognized how many influences there are that had set her mind against the duty.

There is the television and movie portrayal of courtrooms as battlegrounds, of lawyers and judges yelling at each other and at the defendant. It gives the average citizen the idea that a courtroom is the last place that he or she would want to be.

At the same time, she said, for the vast majority of Americans, the processes of a court -- and in many cases, the processes of government -- are foreign.

"I never had a problem," Bilinkas said. "I never had contact with government or the court system. My only contact with government was paying my taxes or a motor vehicle office."

She said she was greatly impressed as Smith questioned each potential juror seeking the seven -- six and one alternate -- who would hear the case. The 20 questions are the same, but, Bilinkas said, the judge found a way to ask them differently of each juror, seeking particular answers as to their impartiality.

Bilinkas said she and the other jurors were put at ease right from the start by jury manager Mary Ciriaco, who with humor and grace detailed the experience. "I told her she was Joan Rivers. She said she hears that all the time," Bilinkas said.

"Being an eighth-grade teacher I'm used to chaos," Bilinkas said. "It is so well organized, everyone is so professional. They take care of your needs."

But it was sitting in the jury assembly room that the sense of meaning of her presence set in, Bilinkas said.

"You walk into that room and you notice that it's the melting pot, and you have one thing in common with them all -- that you are an American citizen," she said.

Then, she said, the differences appear: different races, different religions, different accents. Yet they all answered the jury qualification questions the same.

"I am as American as apple pie," Bilinkas said, "and maybe it's not politically correct to say that. I'm proud to be an American, and that experience just brought it all home for me, that this system would work for me."

Bilinkas said that while the description of the case they might hear if selected -- an auto injury civil case -- spawned the words "frivolous lawsuit" in the minds of more than one juror, she realized that the greatness of the justice system was evident.

Even a person who might have what is eventually dismissed as a frivolous lawsuit has the right to make an argument in court; every citizen has the right to be heard.

Her only regret was that she didn't get selected for the jury. She thinks the judge knew she was related to a well-known defense attorney in Morris County.

"I felt rejected -- we all did -- because ultimately you want to do the right thing," Bilinkas said.

Still, "it was a pleasure to sit in that room and focus on the history at work, that the Constitution is there over 200 years after the forefathers laid it out," she said.

Bilinkas said no one she knows except her father ever served on a jury before. Now he is 81, she said, and he is unhappy that he is past the cutoff age of 75 and cannot serve again.

The key word, she said, is "serve."

"I'm a big history buff," Bilinkas said. "I'm really into World War II battles, probably because my Dad served, my whole family served. When I got home I called my Dad and said thanks, thanks to you and so many others that I don't have to speak German in my classroom. I saw what you fought for."

Jury duty, Bilinkas said, "is the basic level of citizen involvement. It is what you can do if you cannot serve in the military. This is a system that keeps going because someone is willing to step up and keep it going. I would have had a negative take on the system if I had not had the experience. I'm glad I got the envelope, and I'm glad it was for me."

I haven't served on jury duty since 1983. I'm ready to do it again!

The issue of Christmas decorations in public places is one of those "can't win" issues. It is based solely on emotion. 

The wildest and wooliest Christmas decoration controversy this year comes to us from Green Bay, WI. The home of the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field.

However, this "game" is being played at City Hall, not Lambeau Field.

The short version of the story is like all the others. It is just Green Bay's turn on this issue.

City has put up nativity scene for years. Advised to take down. Then put back up and was going to allow other religious stuff. Then backtracked on that.

Which turned into the Public Hearing described in this article.

The comments range the entire spectrum of possible thoughts on this issue. For those of you interested in this issue, you will find the comments very entertaining. 

I chuckled the whole way through.