A Trial by Jury

D. Graham Burnett's "Trial By Jury" is not a "true crime" novel. In fact, it is to "true crime" what Jane Austen is to Harlequin romances. I am not writing this to sound smarmy, but just to let the reader know that while this is a story of a trial and the tensions arising therefrom, the reader should not expect anything resembling Ann Rule or even Truman Capote. [This mis-expectation, I think, accounts for several of the negative reviews.]This is a autobiographical recount of D. Graham Burnett's jury duty on a murder trial. Burnett's rationle for recounting the trial is to give us a view of the machinations of the jury trial and, in so doing, reflect on such things as the difference between law and justice, and the ways in which we try to ascertain the truth of a matter when all we have are disjointed facts and clues.The trial is that of Monte Virginia Millcray, who is charged with stabbing Randolph Cuffee about 20 times. Millcray says the stabbings were in self-defense, after Cuffee (posing as a woman) tried to rape Millcray. The prosecutions account is that Millcray and Cuffee were in a relationship and Millcray snapped.About half of the book is about the courtroom drama and half is about the lengthy (20+ hour) deliberation process and it is clear that the author places much more emphasis on the latter half of the book. Witnesses are gone through rather quickly, summarized as might be done by a story teller quickly laying the obligatory groundwork for the "real" story. By contrast, Burnett's recounting of the jury deliberation is quite lengthy and detailed.To this reader's mind, Burnett really does a good job with describing the jury deliberations and for those of us who've done jury duty before, much of his retelling will seem familiar. Tempers flare, opinions clash and fluctuate. Evidence is combed over again and again, in hopes that each time will reveal something missed the time before.Burnett also reflects on the jury process. Some of his reflections - the mismatch between law and justice - are rather pedestrian and hackneyed. (I confess that I was sometimes annoyed that some of Burnett's more pedestrian reflections were sometimes treated as if he were the first to have thought of them.) Others - jury sequestration as an example of the virtually unlimited power of the state - were quite interesting. Either way, Burnett's retelling of the jury deliberation is as much recount as it is reflection. (If that would bore you, you might get bored with this book.)"Trial by Jury" is not for everyone. As noted, it is not a "true crime" novel, and is not a page-turner. I don't think that was D. Graham Burnett's goal in writing the book. Rather, it is a sometimes entertaining and other-times thought-provoking examination of one man's experience with, and reflections on, a jury trial as a way to try and mete out imperfect justice in an imperfect world.

The book started a little slow, but once the jury got into their deliberations it was very interesting. I have never been chosen for a jury so this was as close to being there as I will get.

Extremely well written and thoughtful and almost poetical story by a man who served as foreman on a jury in a trial for murder in New York City. He takes us through the trial and then through the several days of deliberations. He does this almost like a short story teller describing the individual jurors and what they said and the emotions and conflicts that arose, as well as describing the difficulties almost prison-like conditions the jurors themselves were in over several days, and their arrival at what they felt was a just and correct verdict.Highly recommended by this long-time litigation attorney.

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.

It is easy to pick on people that are less educated than you, and, if you are very well educated like this author, to do it in a way that seems less than mean spirited, however real people are difficult to understand and this is what the book unfortunately missed. The author approaches his subject "critically" rather than with curiosity. Because of his intelligance, his education, his experiance, etc., he obviously feels that he "knows" what he is talking about. And, about many things, some of which are in this flawed book, this is true. But, he could have learned many things and this is the problem with the book. While as a trial lawyer I found the book useful, I would hesitate to say that I also found it to be good.

This book was unlike anything I expected. It was an emotional roller coaster just from following the characters through their journey. I am speechless and how Burnett was able to explain everything so well while engaging the reader emotionally. Splendid book. I am so glad I read it.