'Glorious mess'; Letter from juror at Law Day.

• Author: Murray, Gary V.
• Position: News

Byline: Gary V. Murray

WORCESTER -- U.S. District Court Judge Michael A. Ponsor, the guest speaker at the Worcester County Bar Association's annual Law Day breakfast Friday at the Beechwood Hotel, used a note from a disgruntled juror to drive home the point that although those engaged in the pursuit of justice have made headway over the last 800 years, they still have a long way to go.

Working off this year's Law Day theme of "Magna Carta: Symbol of Freedom Under Law,'' Judge Ponsor started out by providing a brief history of the Magna Carta, signed in 1215 and widely regarded as one of the most significant legal documents in the history of democracy.

He then addressed the difficulty faced by modern-day lawyers and judges in their ongoing efforts to uphold the Magna Carta's principles.

"The effort to take these rules, these principles of due process and equal protection, and make them effective in people's lives is the most creative, the most profound, the most difficult thing humanity has ever tried.

"It is not easy, inevitable, or even natural. A fair legal system is an act of imagination that we keep aloft just by our continuing belief in it and commitment to it. It always needs fixing,'' Judge Ponsor told about 150 members of the local legal community and their guests.

To emphasize his point, the senior U.S. District Court judge for the District of Massachusetts, who was appointed to the bench in 1994 by President Bill Clinton, shared with the audience a note from a juror in a civil case over which he recently presided at the federal courthouse in Springfield.

The note from "Juror 5'' was never actually delivered to the judge, but was discovered by his clerk in the deliberation room at the conclusion of the case.

It read as follows:

"Your Honor, I am tired of spending day after day wasting my time listening to this bullcrap. This is cruel and unusal (sic) punishment. The plaintif (sic) is an idiot. He has no case. Why are we here? I think my cat could better answer these questions ... And he wouldn't keep asking to see a document.

"I've been patient. I've sat in these chairs for 7 days now. If I believed for a second this case was going to end on Thursday, I might not go crazy. This is going to last for another 4 weeks. I cannot take this. I hate these lawyers and prayed one would die so the case would end. I shouldn't be on this jury. I want to die. I don't want to be thanked for my patience. I want to die. Well not die for real but...