Your Oct. 7 issue included a letter to the editor “DeKalb Superior Court judge had right to find potential juror in contempt” from Matthew Crosby who defended Judge Linda Warren Hunter’s decision to incarcerate a reluctant juror, Anuchka McGruder. Judge Hunter’s opponent, Tom Stubbs, had suggested that McGruder requested to be excused from jury duty because she was ill, but Crosby’s letter contains a portion of the colloquy between Judge Hunter and McGruder, which excludes any mention of illness. Instead, Crosby’s letter paints McGruder as “disrespectful” and “contemptuous.” The transcript may be summarized by McGruder’s own reason to avoid jury duty, “I just don’t want to be a juror.”
Neither Stubbs nor Crosby addressed the overriding question, and that is what to do with unwilling jurors. Many summoned to jury duty would, theoretically, be glad to serve and fulfill their civic duty. I say “theoretically” because even those who see jury service as a true duty have lives that get in the way-they have jobs, day care drop off, Little League games, etc., that make jury service inconvenient. Still others conscientiously object to compulsory servitude, not only to an individual master but also to the state, whose power of retribution greatly exceeds that of the individual.
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