Juror #70

Read time: 5 minutes

Welcome to The Ascend Archives, a weekly newsletter where I share a story about a transformation, revelation, or change in thinking that has improved an aspect of my life.

“When I call your number, please take a seat in the jury box.”

Number 1. 7. 9. 11. 13. 15. 18. 25.

As each number was called, people stood up from the benches, walked past the prosecutors, the defense attorney, the defendant, and sat in a swivel chair on the other side of the courtroom.

I couldn’t look up. All I could think was: please don’t pick me.

The judge kept going. 28. 31. 33. 35.

The numbers were climbing in order, and I was number 70. She must’ve called close to 12 numbers already. I started to relax. I’m going to be fine, I told myself.

Then she jumped ahead.

“Number 70 and 88.”

My heart dropped. 

Without thinking, I grabbed my backpack and slid out of the row, walking past the people who’d get to go home to their jobs, their lives, their normal—people who wouldn’t have to partake in a child-sexual-abuse case.

As I made my way to my seat, the judge said, “Alright, that’s it, folks. Everyone else is dismissed.”

Just like that, a courtroom of a hundred nervous strangers shrank to twenty people — the jurors, the lawyers, the judge, the defendant, and the bailiff.

This just got real.

The night before, I’d joked to my girlfriend:
“Objectively, I’m a pretty by-the-rules, law-abiding, stoic person. I’d probably make a pretty good juror.”

But that wasn’t what I was thinking walking into that courtroom Monday morning.

I run my own business. If I don’t work, the work doesn’t get done. I’d just hit stride on marathon training—going to bed early, eating clean, finally in rhythm. I’d promised to help my girlfriend move. I had client projects, travel coming up, and tons of drafts of this newsletter I hadn’t published in weeks.

I didn’t have time for jury duty.

So earlier in the week, I asked around for advice on how to get out of it. Friends told me to say I watched Law & Order every night or that I had someone at home who needed care. My friend in law school said, “Whatever the topic is, sound like an expert. They’ll skip you.”

But lying or even stretching the truth didn’t sit right. We were asked to fill out an online questionnaire prior to showing up on day one. I completed it 100% truthfully, even when I knew it lowered my odds of escape.

Then jury selection day arrived. Once all 100 potential jurors sat down, the prosecutor began questioning the room: raise your hand if you 1) have experienced sexual abuse or 2) know someone who was accused or a victim of sexual abuse?

Half the hands in the room went up, and for nearly two hours, people shared painful stories.

I just sat there, silent. None of the questions applied to me.

Then they moved on to questions about law enforcement and children. The defense attorney explained that jurors had to set aside preconceived assumptions. Police don’t automatically tell the truth, and neither do kids. He gave everyone an opening: “If you don’t think you can be unbiased about listening to a child testify, speak up now.”

A few new hands shot up and the attorney jotted their numbers down. This was my chance to walk. All I had to do was raise my hand and say I couldn’t be impartial. No one would ever know the difference.

But when I thought about it, I couldn’t do it.

I didn’t have a personal bias here. And I kept thinking about the people in that room who did—people who’d have to relive trauma if they were chosen, people who couldn’t separate their feelings about children from the truth. 

If I could shoulder this week easier than they could, maybe I should.

So I stayed quiet.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I was the perfect juror.

As the trial began, we witnessed the prosecution start to stumble through their case—forgetting names, fumbling dates, circling the same questions.

I found myself frustrated, wanting the facts to line up neatly, like they do on TV. But they didn’t.

Everything was based on testimony. People’s words about something that supposedly happened five years ago. No physical evidence. No phone records. No confession.

I wanted the story to make sense. I wanted to know who was lying. But the more I listened, the less certain I became.

As people took the stand, I focused on the details. Did the timelines described make sense? Why did one person mention a twin bed while the other person mentioned bunk beds? How did they have no recollection of the time of year?

I kept thinking about something one of the lawyers told us before the trial started: our job was to follow the law. That meant assuming the defendant was innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

So as I listened to horrific details from the testimonies, my natural instinct was how could someone make that up? But my mind kept searching for something beyond their words.

In my head, proof to convict someone as guilty was more than testimony, it needed to be something you could see.

As the trial came to a close, I still had dozens of unanswered questions.

I was eager to finally talk with my peers and try to piece this puzzle together. Maybe I’d missed something. Maybe I was thinking about it all wrong.

Then, as the judge dismissed us to deliberate, I learned I wouldn’t get that chance.

“Andrew Fink, you are an alternate, so you will be separated from the jury for the remainder of the trial. We will let you know if we need you for anything.”

The twelve jurors went back to their room to decide the defendant’s fate.
I sat alone in a separate conference room.

The next morning, I learned the verdict — guilty on two counts of sexual assault of a child.
Later that day, the sentence: ninety-nine years for each count.

This man was going to die in prison.

I wasn’t sure what to feel — relief? sadness? doubt?

If he did it, then the outcome was right. Nobody deserves a second chance after those acts.
But the lack of certainty nagged at me.

The jury had sentenced him to life in prison based purely on words — no “concrete” evidence, no “proof”. I found myself uneasy with that.

It doesn’t mean I think they were wrong. It just made me realize something I hadn’t before: Proof and evidence aren’t always concrete. “Beyond a reasonable doubt” doesn’t mean “no doubt.” You can still have questions and send someone away for life.

That’s a wild concept.

Afterward, when I spoke with some of the jurors, he said it came down to one question: Do we believe he did it or not?

The minor inconsistencies — the timelines, the missing details — they believed were just the natural result of trauma, time, and children trying to remember.

But after taking in all the evidence from the case, they believed he did it and charged him accordingly.

As I reflected, I realized how much I’d clung to the idea of proof — something concrete, visible, undeniable. But this experience taught me that life rarely gives you that kind of certainty.

I gained a new appreciation for the justice system. Before this week, I thought it was purely about the facts. But I saw it’s more about people and the weight of deciding what to believe when the truth can’t be 100% proven.

Thank you for reading! As always please reply and let me know what resonated, what didn’t, or what you question. I love chatting about this stuff!

Cheers,

Andrew