I, the Juror by Joyce Carol Oates Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

I, the Juror by Joyce Carol Oates - Essay Example Further the defending and prosecuting attorneys do their utmost to obscure the actual facts by drowning the jurors in a deluge of sheer verbosity calculated to bias the jury in favor of their respective clients. Consequently the behavior of the jurors as they half-heartedly try to arrive at the truth is characterized by prejudice and a singular lack of interest in the proceedings that are far-removed from their own lives. Oates description of the behavior of her fellow jurors is chilling. Their careless thoughtlessness is far more disturbing than deliberate maliciousness or spite, as the sheer subtlety of the former trait puts them in a position to do irreparable damage albeit inadvertently to those supplicants seeking justice. From the clothes worn by the jurors (one juror actually turns up in shorts) to their careless misrepresentation of facts in their final deliberation of the case, the jurors behave with a certain frivolity that shows a lack of respect for the gravity of the situation and their own responsibility to fellow human beings. Age old prejudices based on the color of the skin or sex thought long dead and buried rear their ugly heads and manifest themselves in the long-winding, precarious road to justice. Such conduct on the part of the jurors is surprising in the extreme. Their exposure to the dark underbelly of American society is a far cry from the pristine, squeaky-clean existence t hey are accustomed to. Most react by hastening to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the world of the victim and defendant, in which they want no part. Therefore the jurors made no attempt to grasp the facts or analyze them with any degree of insight or intelligence, the bottom-line being a largely white jury wanted no truck with the blacks and their doings. In this day and age, such a state of affairs is shocking and the