{"id":18762,"date":"2014-07-10T00:01:33","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T07:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=18762"},"modified":"2014-07-10T00:01:33","modified_gmt":"2014-07-10T07:01:33","slug":"judge-harbin-fortes-courtroom-where-jury-duty-is-an-exercise-in-mindfulness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/judge-harbin-fortes-courtroom-where-jury-duty-is-an-exercise-in-mindfulness\/","title":{"rendered":"In Judge Harbin-Forte’s Courtroom — Where Jury Duty Is an Exercise in Mindfulness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A long line of people, many of them prospective jurors, waited to enter the Superior Court of California building in Hayward at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning. Photo by BF Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

Tired of multitasking? Want to get away from Facebook, your cell phone, your boss, and that squeaky faucet that needs fixing? Get yourself called up for jury duty.<\/p>\n

Want to be in a place where one person talks at a time, nobody interrupts, and everybody listens? Try Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte’s courtroom at the Hayward, California, Hall of Justice during jury selection.<\/p>\n

Want to practice mindfulness \u2013 being fully present and aware of the here and now and nothing else?\u00a0Spend a couple of days in a context — a culture — where the thing to do is listen quietly to what other people have to say.<\/p>\n

\"Modern<\/a>
The Hayward Hall of Justice, Superior Court of California, County of Alameda. Photo by BF Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Judge Harbin-Forte<\/a>\u2019s courtroom, your job as a prospective juror is to pay attention and listen carefully to other prospective jurors as they answer questions about their life experiences –:<\/p>\n

The potential juror whose father was killed in a hit-and-run accident. The one whose mother was struck by a cement truck and is still in pain. The woman who had three back surgeries. And the jock who, fearful of losing his scholarship, played college football despite a painful knee injury.<\/p>\n

The Courtroom as Zendo<\/h5>\n

It\u2019s a setting as quiet and orderly as a Zendo, and the jury duty experience is an exercise in mindfulness. There are no distractions. Cellphone use is not allowed here. Neither is eating or smoking. And, while the court is in session, there\u2019s absolutely no reading, no texting, no googling, no conversation.<\/p>\n

You are to pay attention in Judge Harbin-Forte’s courtroom. The mind is to be alert and focused, starting right now, with jury selection. No daydreaming. No thoughts of yesterday or tomorrow. The judge’s instructions \u2013 the law \u2013 require you to pay attention.<\/p>\n

I was not selected as a juror, so I was excused on the second day, as soon as a jury was empaneled. But those two half-days were a nice little vacation for me \u2013 from home, work and the computer keyboard.<\/p>\n

It was relaxing. So nice to be allowed \u2013 required \u2013 to pay attention to just one thing at a time.<\/p>\n

Unlike the cluttered pages of Huffington Post, or the antic graphics of \u201cThe Colbert Report,\u201d or our kitchen TV screen tuned to CNN with its multiple scrolling messages and talking heads drowning each other out \u2013 one and only one person at a time was permitted to voice his or her thoughts in Judge Harbin-Forte\u2019s courtroom.<\/p>\n

Minding My Manners in Scottville, Michigan<\/h5>\n

Life should be more like this, I thought. This is civilized. This is a set of norms I’ve experienced only rarely since I sat in my Aunt Ruth\u2019s living room in Scottville, Michigan, one afternoon many decades ago. My nonagenarian grandmother was there; so was a sprinkling of farm-bred aunts and uncles.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d flown in from California, where my very coastal young friends were in the habit of getting together to talk \u2013 all at once.<\/p>\n

My relatives, on the other hand, had seated themselves, not in several small conversation clumps like my talky friends, but around the periphery of the room. Everyone could see and hear<\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>
My Scottville grandparents with their seven childen, around 1935. Photo by Ludington Studio. Used by permission.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

everyone else, and no one seemed to be in a conversational rush. One person spoke at a time, and if something funny happened to be said, there was time to laugh before the next person spoke.<\/p>\n

Of course, one might argue that retired Midwestern farm folks are not so much laconic as short on material. Aside from fishing and eating pie, there\u2019s not much to do, let alone talk about, in Scottville, Michigan. Somehow you\u2019ve got to make your stories last\u00a0 till suppertime.<\/p>\n

A Nearly Forgotten Social Skill<\/h5>\n

Truth is, I think my country aunts and uncles were on to something.<\/p>\n

My friend Jake \u2013 a super sophisticated LA type who advises big political muckety-mucks \u2013 once gave me some advice to take along on the promotion circuit that’s coming up for my book, Wrestling with God<\/em>. <\/a>When I\u2019m being interviewed, he said, listen to the question. Give it my full attention; don\u2019t get caught up in preparing an answer while the question is still being asked.<\/p>\n

And then, before speaking, take a couple of seconds to organize my thoughts. What is it that I truly want to say?<\/p>\n

Judge Harbin-Forte, my Aunt Ruth, my friend Jake \u2013 the message is the same. Do I really want to load the dishwasher, talk to Jon, watch \u201cSo You Think You Can Dance,\u201d and wipe the chicken grease off the floor all at the same time?<\/p>\n

Or would I like to see how it feels to do one thing at a time? Maybe, for example, keep quiet and listen to somebody else talk until they\u2019ve actually finished saying what they have to say.<\/p>\n

If you liked this story, you might like, “Watching My Grown-Up Kids Disappear”<\/a>\u00a0 or\u00a0 “Buddhist Writing — Wisdom or Chicken Shit?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

To get regular notices of new posts, click on one of the icons — email, Twitter, Facebook or RSS feed — at the top of the right hand column.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Copy<\/a>
Photo by BF Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"David<\/a><\/p>\n

What does a farm family in Michigan have in common with a courtroom in Hayward, California? A nearly forgotten social skill. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[272,1283,34,1284,1285,1286,1287,214,1288,1289,55,82,233,1290,53],"class_list":["post-18762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-buddhism","tag-cnn","tag-dont-miss","tag-falconers","tag-hayward-hall-of-justice","tag-judge-brenda-harbin-forte","tag-jury-duty","tag-michigan","tag-midwesterners","tag-mindfulness","tag-family-stories","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-scottville-michigan","tag-superior-court-of-the-state-of-california","tag-wrestling-with-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}