25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Jury of One, August 25, 2002
I found this book in the library and at the time, had no knowledge of its publisher's heavy push, its substantial hardcover printing, or the author's 10-city book tour as mentioned in the PW and other reviews.
It seemed interesting, and the jacket blurbs referring to "Twelve Angry Men" were appealing.
Other reviewers have stated simply the differences between what the book jacket promises, and what's in the book. Literature, especially this type, responds to the world; it does not direct it.
I've heard dozens of people complain about jury duty, and dozens more say that it's pointless. Despite Professor Burnett's statements to the contrary (after these pages of complete self-obsession and disrespect for his fellow jurors, and every living being in the courtroom with the possible exception of the sommnolent history-loving bailiff) - his "affirmations" that the jury system still works, although men like his fellow juror Felipe should not be allowed to sit - this book tells the story of a jury of one. One man who is no better than, and perhaps a bit worse than all those other people who want to weasel out of jury duty, who don't take it seriously, or who think the system doesn't work.
Those who read this book will learn what the professor ate during sequestration (fruit, nuts, cheese, bread, fennel bulbs). Blood oranges! A dozen blood oranges in New York City. A blood orange is insipid, an expensive luxury that appeals to the eye, but tastes far less rich than an ordinary Navel. They will learn that men who wear large belt buckles that say "Rodeo" are usually knee-jerk conservative "good 'ol boys." Except sometimes they're not. They will learn that the Professor read The Economist during lunch breaks, while sitting in a pleasant, sunny corner. Eating fruit and nuts.
Imagine Bosie Douglas sitting on, and writing about a jury trial. The Professor describes, and quotes, his sixth-grade performance of "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." The witnesses in the trial at hand were mostly drag queens. They had names like Nahteesha and Hector-Laverne. I would like to have known more of them, but they, like everyone else in that courtroom and in that jury room, were not "real" to the Professor. They were neither orange, nor almond. Nor a hard wedge of cheese. Nor belt buckles.
The Professor discloses in a weak moment that he came into the trial wanting a hung jury. Before any evidence was heard, his initial plan was "hung jury." He spends the first days of his jury foremanship seeking that same hung jury, observing and manipulating the others and their various "camps" of guilty or not-guilty, then inexplicably, he changes and comes down on the side of "not guilty." And that is how all voted in the end. I'm not spoiling anything - there is no suspense whatsoever and the entire crime and the "end" is detailed in the beginning of the book.
Most people think the jury system is stupid, and that the legal system is even worse: fumbling, blindly cruel, ultimately injust. Most people would rather have a root canal than serve on a jury. Yet, I think, that if any of these same people were somehow indicted for a crime they didn't commit, every single one of them would want a jury of their peers.
Yet some people do not believe in the fundamental concept of "peer" or "community," and that is absolutely what this book is about. The Professor proposes no alternative to trial by jury; his single cogent, factual argument consists of explaining that "not guilty" is not synonymous with "innocent," and that is true. His example of why the jury system is flawed is Felipe, who seems incoherent and strange (although not provably "stupid," the author's efforts aside), yet it is the Professor who came into the situation committed to a "hung jury," and it is the Professor who manipulated and bludgeoned his fellow jury members into coming to a "not guilty" verdict after days of noncommunication about nonfacts. It does not seem from the limited description of the courtroom case that the State proved "beyond a reasonable doubt," and nearly everyone knows that this is what must be done for a conviction. So, there is a "happy ending" in the sense that this isn't about a miscarriage of justice, for the defendant doesn't seem to have been proven guilty.
This book proves that even the most effete, out of touch, biased, arrogant, bullying, self-obsessed, manipulative, confused and mediocre intellectual can function on a jury of peers and that said jury can come to a decision that was probably appropriate.
I don't know what to say about the publisher's evaluation that this was a book "about the jury system" or anything like "Twelve Angry Men," which depicts twelve individuals as opposed to a jury of one. I don't know what to say about why they thought this odd document that reaffirms that effete, capricious, self-obsessed faux-intellectualism is alive and well and that male academicians can still effectively bully female academicians perfectly well, without a second thought, or that people who dress, look, act, and obsess over perceived slights like Bosie Douglas are "the cutting edge" and worth 100,000 hardcovers and a ten book tour. Maybe it's really an amazing story because it's a wonder that a second murder wasn't committed in the jury room. I think that's it.
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Why Academics Make Lousy Jurors, December 14, 2002
This review is from: A Trial by Jury (Paperback)
I've been a trial lawyer for more than 30 years. I've tried both civil and criminal cases. Currently I am a prosecutor. So I was interested in Burnett's book because it promised to give me a glimpse of how a jury conducts itself in deliberations. If the jury Burnett served on in Manhattan is any indication, it's like the saying that it's better not to see how sausage is made.
I don't fault all the members of this jury... A more alert prosecutor would have struck him at the outset when he observed him segregating himself from the rest of the jury panel, nibbling his fruits and nuts and reading his newspaper in the corner.
It is not the verdict the jury ultimately reached that is offensive. If the jury wanted to entertain a reasonable doubt whether or not the defendant acted in self defense, that was its prerogative. But to sit around and debate justice vs. the law for four days was simply a jury out of control, led by an academic who apparently operates on such a high intellectual plane that common sense is alien to him.
I'd be interested in what his fellow jurors make of Burnett's account of their common experience. My surmise is that they would not recognize his account. He was so off base that in the end, this is simply one man's subjective and distorted view of how the legal system functions.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The idea is great; the author, case and jury are less so, November 8, 2001
The idea for this book was certainly a good one. Given how the whole jury system plays such a central role in our judicial system, it is rather surprising that there is so little material on what actually goes in inside the jury room. As Burnett rightly points out, it is a "largely inaccessible space in our society." Thus the book is certainly a step towards filling that void. That said, I found it somewhat unsatisfying for several reasons, some of them within the author's control and some of them not.
In various other reviews here, the author has been described variously as "pretentious" (on several occasions), "pompous", "snobbish", "holier-than thou", "smug", and "self-congratulatory". Anyone see a theme here? I don't really disagree with any of these and I would add pedantic, condescending and superior. It really comes through on almost every page. And yet, I have to say that with the possible exception of Adelle, no one else in that jury room seemed like a candidate for MENSA. In fact, a number of them, such as Felipe and Rachel, seemed like true idiots.
The overall lack of intelligence of so many jury members had several unfortunate consequences. First, with just a few exceptions, including some comments by Adelle and Dean, it made the deliberations (which take up half of the book) much less interesting than they otherwise might have been. Second, whatever sense of pedantry and superiority which is probably naturally latent in the author anyway were probably brought to the fore when he saw who he was dealing with.
Also, again though no fault of the author's, I simply didn't find the case he had to work with all that riveting. A man was lured to or went voluntarily to the apartment of some sort of man/woman/transvestite/cross-dresser/drag queen and either did or did not kill the latter in self-defense when the latter made sexual advances.
All in all, it was not a bad book by any means, but I don't think that it was the book it could have been either.
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