Abortion and Punishment

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DONALD TRUMP: Are you Catholic?

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yes, I think ...

TRUMP: And how do you feel about the Catholic Church's position?

MATTHEWS: Well, I accept the teaching authority of my church on moral issues.

TRUMP: I know, but do you know their position on abortion?

MATTHEWS: Yes, I do.

TRUMP: And do you concur with the position?

MATTHEWS: I concur with their moral position but legally, I get to the question — here's my problem with it ...

TRUMP: No, no, but let me ask you: But what do you say about your church?

MATTHEWS: It's not funny.

TRUMP: Yes, it's really not funny. What do you say about your church? They're very, very strong.

MATTHEWS: They're allowed to — but the churches make their moral judgments, but you running for president of the United States will be chief executive of the United States. Do you believe ...

TRUMP: No, but ...

MATTHEWS: Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no, as a principle?

TRUMP: The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.

MATTHEWS: For the woman?

TRUMP: Yes, there has to be some form.

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I am always uncomfortable when the subject of abortion is brought into the political arena.

That is mostly because I have always considered myself totally neutral on the issue. It's like Mark Twain said about heaven and hell. He said he had friends in both places, and I have friends on both sides. What's more, whenever my friends explain their positions, I find it hard to dispute what any of them say.

I agree that it is terrible that people end the lives of unborn children before they have begun. Children are the most innocent of creatures, and it is hard to justify denying them the opportunity to live and to love, to experience all the things, good and bad, that there are to experience in this world.

But I have known a few women who had abortions — I may know others as well, but those are the three who I know for sure have had abortions — and it was a painful experience for them. I'm not talking about physical pain — although I'm sure there was some of that as well. I'm talking about emotional pain, inner turmoil.

Without exception they experienced fear — of what, I couldn't tell you. Society? The legal system? God? All three? All three and more? I don't think even they knew for sure. But they were afraid, and they lived with that fear long after the abortion.

They were sad, too — again, not well defined, but it would be safe to say that they felt sadness over having to do what they did — and that, too, can be for many reasons. Obviously, I could never know what maternal instincts feel like, but my best guess would be that a significant part of that sadness was because the act of abortion is totally contradictory to one's protective maternal instincts. It's a law of nature, really, and I am certain that there is an emotional price to be paid by those who believe they have violated natural law.

They were confused, swept along by a series of events over which they had no control.

If the subject is going to be punishment, I think those women — and most of the others who have had abortions since the Supreme Court's decision 43 years ago — endured plenty of punishment, mostly self–inflicted. It was a mandatory byproduct of the procedure.

I'm sure that isn't the kind of punishment Trump meant when he spoke with Chris Matthews at a town hall meeting that was televised on MSNBC earlier this week ahead of next week's primary in Wisconsin. And there may well be some people in this country who agreed with Trump when he said there had to be a form of punishment for women who had abortions if abortion was made illegal. There probably are some people who agreed with him, but it would have to be a tiny sliver of a minority.

In fact, of all the pro–life people I know and have known — and bear in mind that I live in what is arguably the most conservative part of the country — I can't think of one who would support the idea of punishing the woman. The doctor who performed the abortion and profited by it is another matter entirely, but I cannot imagine any of my pro–life friends saying that the woman should be punished.

They would probably advocate counseling of some kind, but I'm quite sure they would be sympathetic with the woman and see her as more of a victim than a perp.

Trump backtracked shortly after making the statement — presumably when his aides pointed out to him that he had enough problems with women without saying they should be punished for having an abortion — but the damage had been done. Trump's negatives took a hit, not just with women but with young voters, independents, the list of groups keeps on growing. I'm sure his answer didn't help him with Hispanics, most of whom were already angry at him over his immigration remarks.

(Perhaps my favorite line about Trump's standing with women came in a column written by former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan for the Wall Street Journal. "Already his numbers in next week's Wisconsin primary have fallen," Noonan wrote, "and as for women — well, with women nationally Mr. Trump is currently more popular than cholera — but not by much.")

I haven't really been surprised by the backlash. I've always thought Trump was something of a loose cannon; I'm just surprised it took so long to become clear to everyone else. Like most people, I guess I figured he would fizzle out long before his campaign reached the point where trying to stop him from winning the nomination appeared as hopeless as trying to stop a runaway train.

But now he may have handed his opponents the ammunition they need to bring him down. My take on this, though, is that it's not just the interview that is responsible. I truly believe it is the cumulative effect of several months of Trumpisms that leave a bitter taste in the mouths of those who hear them. Some — not all but some — of the Trump supporters I know are mortified by the things he has been saying. Texas' Republican primary was held on March 1 so the Trump supporters around here who are suffering from buyer's remorse have few options, but it isn't too late for people who vote in primaries this month and in May and early June.

I've heard the Wisconsin primary described as the Republicans' Alamo — their very last opportunity to stop Trump. Based on the polls I have been reading, Trump may well lose in Wisconsin, a state in which he was leading not long ago — and victories have a way of ending one candidate's momentum and giving it to someone else. We will see if that is what happens this time.

Nor am I really surprised that Matthews pressed Trump into delivering one of his shoot–from–the–hip responses. Matthews long ago made clear which side he favored in political contests, and he was doing his usual job as the lackey journalist. Mission accomplished. He drew Trump out into a minefield of his own making.

It's part of the give–and–take of politics. There hasn't been a president in my lifetime who hasn't felt mistreated by the press. If you aspire to be president, you have to be prepared for that. You have to be nimble, light on your feet in your answers, not lead–footed.

Trump gives the impression that he speaks without having given much, if any, thought to the subject. I have been critical for months of his failure to provide any solutions for the problems facing this country except to repeatedly tell us that the United States is "going to win again" when he becomes president. That sounds like Charlie Sheen (who also has problems with women).

It is simply inexcusable for a Republican not to anticipate questions about abortion. The public is going to assume, rightly or wrongly, that a Republican is going to be pro–life, and that is probably what Matthews assumed. Now, it's OK to be pro–life if you're going to give thoughtful reasons for your position — but it isn't OK, even with most other pro–lifers, to be Draconian about it.

Trump wasn't the only one who needed instruction in how to conduct himself, though. Matthews, too, could have used some pointers.

I have taught many journalism students, and I would chastise any of them for allowing an interviewee to become the interviewer, as Matthews allowed Trump to do. In this case, it ended up working out for Matthews, but that can so easily backfire on a journalist.

A journalist has no control over how the subject of an interview responds to questions. I understand that. Each situation is different and must be handled differently, but, in this case, I would have advised Matthews to say this when Trump started to interview him: "This is not about what I think. I am not a candidate for president. You are a candidate for president, and it is in that capacity that I am asking you what you think."

(By the way, that is essentially the same question I would ask of Hillary Clinton on the subject of her emails — in the context of her Nixonian assertion that her predecessors at State did the same things she did: "This is not about what they did. This is about what you did.")

When I was studying journalism in college, one of my professors delivered the lecture that every journalism student has heard at one time or another. "You should be like a fly on the wall" when you report on an event, the professor said. "The reader shouldn't even know you're there." If there was one thing that was driven home repeatedly in my journalism classes, it was the idea that a journalist should never be part of the story.

The readers — or, in this case, the viewers — knew Matthews was there, that he was part of the story. He managed to turn the tables on Trump and goad him into giving what could be, in hindsight, the remarks that proved to be the tipping point for his campaign. Perhaps, in Matthews' mind, all's well that ends well.

But he ran a huge risk of being the elephant in the room rather than a fly on the wall.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

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There were times — not many but a few — in my college days when I played some poker with my friends.

I was never very good at it, especially the art of bluffing — and I say that with all due respect because I'm sure those guys who were good at bluffing have gone on to enjoy great success in whichever career paths they followed.

Especially if their career paths were political. Politics frequently requires good bluffing — in other words, having what is known as a "poker face." I've heard it said that Richard Nixon developed quite a poker face from playing poker in the service during World War II. Apparently, it served him well in negotiations he had as president with the Russians and Chinese.

I believe effective bluffing can be boiled down to two parts — 1) plausibly asserting that something is true, whether it is or not, and 2) successfully backing it up when challenged (i.e., when one's bluff is called).

I'm no lawyer, but, in my mind, I equate it with the legal distinction between assault and battery. It's been my experience that a lot of people think assault and battery is a single crime. It isn't.

I don't remember now when I first heard this explained, whether it was during my reporting days when I covered the police beat or on some occasion when I reported for jury duty and a lawyer was questioning prospective jurors.

It might have been something I heard when I was studying communications law in college although that is probably unlikely since neither legal term would have had much to do with communications — directly, anyway.

In case you don't know, an assault is basically a threat, presumably of physical harm (although, in the modern world, I guess you would have to define a threat of computer hacking as an assault as well — not necessarily a physical threat but a financial one, which can, in due course, threaten life).

If the person who is being threatened believes the other person is capable of carrying out the threat, that is assault. If the threat is actually carried out, that is battery.

Barack Obama did the bluffing part last year when he declared that there was a "red line" in Syria — no chemical weapons use would be tolerated.

Now there are reports that Obama's bluff has been called. Apparently, Syria has used chemical weapons on its people. Recently.

Tom Foreman of CNN writes that this has left Obama with three options: "Bad, worse, and horrible."

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Actually, Foreman outlines more than three options, but, at the end of his piece, he acknowledges that, for a variety of reasons, it all comes down to one — firing cruise missiles from ships in the Mediterranean.

Such missiles, he writes, "are magnificent, virtually unstoppable weapons capable of pinpoint, devastating strikes." But the delay in using them complicates matters. The Syrians have had plenty of time already "to hide their own weapons, secure their airplanes and disperse critical command and control assets."

That sounds like what some of George W. Bush's defenders still say about the invasion of Iraq. That invasion, if you recall, was predicated on the belief that Iraq had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction it would use against the United States, and it was necessary to eliminate them.

To many people, that sounded plausible in the immediate aftermath of 9–11, but no such weapons were found.

Supporters of the invasion insisted Iraq's leaders had moved the stockpiles of weapons. If they did, those weapons still have not been located.

Anyway, at that point, the objective changed from rooting out dangerous weapons to nation building, which was not an original objective of the mission.

In recent days, I have heard supporters of this president justify his taking unilateral action in Syria because other presidents have been launching undeclared wars (and conveniently bypassing the Constitution in the process) since the end of World War II.

But let's get back to our current predicament. I can't speak for anyone else, but I do not blame Obama for this mess — well, not entirely.

Any president who faced these circumstances would be between a rock and a hard place. There are no good options to take, only bad ones and worse ones. I realize that the option I advocate is a bad one, but, in the absence of any good ones ...

At least a portion of these circumstances, however, is Obama's fault. He is the one who drew the red line and told Syria not to cross it. He did that a year ago.

A prudent president would have devoted the past year to building a congressional consensus to authorize him to attack — just in case. Instead, he spent much of that time demonizing the opposition party rather than seeking common ground, knowing full well that he would need the cooperation of the Republican–controlled House to do anything if Syria called his bluff.

None of the polls I saw last year — including the most important one, the one on Election Day — suggested that Obama's party had a prayer of retaking the House. He must have known long before the election that, if he did win, he would have to deal with a Republican–controlled House for at least the first two years of his second term.

As a former constitutional law professor, he should have known that he would need to curry favor with influential Republicans in the House.

And a prudent president would have been building a coalition of American allies. This president has not been doing that, and now it appears we must do whatever we are going to do alone — or practically so.

He says he will consult Congress when it returns from its Labor Day recess, but Congress won't be in session again for a week. That is even more time for Syria to prepare for missile strikes.

Obama is more concerned, it seems, with public opinion polls that suggest that, by margins of 39% to 52%, a majority of Americans opposes military intervention in Syria.

If at last Obama is paying attention to the concerns of the voters, that isn't a bad thing. The American people have witnessed a decade of war that has cost them much but gained them little. The president should consider them, the sacrifices they already have made and the additional sacrifices they are being asked to make, before taking any action — assuming that Congress gives him the green light.

But he should have been laying the groundwork for this for months. He and his secretary of state made naive, false — and dangerous — assumptions about the people with whom they were dealing, and now the global credibility of the United States is at stake. If we do not enforce Obama's red line, what does anyone else have to fear from us?

Polling data suggest that most Americans oppose the idea of an attack, but a majority would support a limited strike.

I think that would be worse than doing nothing (which I believe is the least bad option). A limited strike, lasting a day or two — or perhaps an hour or two — instead of a few weeks (or even months) would be symbolic at best, a virtual slap on the wrist.

Syria (and others like it, in the region and elsewhere) would be emboldened. They would know that there is a price to be paid for using chemical weapons — but that price would be negligible, one that they would willingly pay.

For a missile strike to be more than symbolic, for it to inflict a lesson on Syria that will be felt throughout the region and beyond, it cannot be a limited strike. It cannot be a slap on the wrist that is really intended to give Obama political cover.

To be effective, it must be relentless. It must be decisive. And I don't believe the American people have the stomach for that right now.

I am inclined to sympathize with Obama. He is truly between a rock and a hard place.

But he got there mostly on his own — and now, after nearly five years in the White House, it is high time he learned what leadership is about.

Jury Duty

I reported for jury duty yesterday.

This is something I have done frequently in the past. And observing the jury selection process is something I've done professionally. In my reporting days, I covered the high–profile trials in the county where I lived and worked.

So when I report for jury duty and I have to listen to the equivalent of an intro to the legal system lecture, I must admit that I'm a bit bored. I feel like I've heard — and seen — it all before.

Well, I felt that way until yesterday.

Let me start my recap by pointing out that prospective jurors were required to be at the court building by 8:30. I can assure you that, in Dallas, the morning rush hour is well under way before 8 o'clock. The court building is about 12 miles from my apartment, and it's in a section of Dallas I seldom visit. I had been summoned to unfamiliar territory at the worst possible time of the day — and on a Monday, to boot!

It is safe to say I was not enthusiastic about my task.

Anyway, I left my apartment much earlier than I needed to. I managed to make my commute before traffic got to be too bad, and, as a result, I had a lot of time to kill after I found my parking spot at the court building. It was one of those situations when I really miss smoking. I mean, I'm glad I don't pay outrageous prices for cigarettes anymore, and I don't miss coughing when I get up in the morning, but a cigarette or two in such a situation was always very calming for me, and I miss that sometimes.

Anyway, I missed it yesterday when I had some time on my hands.

Well, I was in my seat at 8:30, along with a couple of thousand prospective jurors. But you know who wasn't there? The person who welcomes us and recites the basics about jury service. Usually, that's a judge, and he/she ordinarily gives the jurors an oath to be truthful when asked any questions during jury selection.

But no judge was on hand at 8:30 ... or at 8:40 ... or at 8:50.

I had a book with me because I know, from previous experience, that you can spend a lot of time on jury duty just waiting for something — anything — to happen. So I read ... for awhile. But then I gave in to the temptation to watch the people.

Jury duty is second only to the afternoons I've spent at racetracks in my life when it comes to people watching.

And I saw several people in the Jurors' Room who looked like celebrities. One looked like Redd Foxx — but I knew it couldn't possibly be Redd Foxx because he has been dead for many years. Pat Morita also is deceased, but I sat next to a fellow who looked just like him — older, a little heavier and his beard was a bit fuller, but he did resemble Morita.

Another one looked like Jeff Goldblum, who is alive, and, for all I know, he may be on location in Dallas for the filming of a movie or he may be taping episodes of the Law & Order" show in which he stars for USA Network. But I don't think he lives anywhere near Dallas County so he wouldn't be summoned for jury duty here.

Now, before I continue, I should tell you that there has been a big change in the Dallas County court buildings (and there are about six or seven of them now, I think) since the last time I was summoned for jury duty. A computer system has been installed, and jurors are encouraged to answer a general questionnaire online.

The jury summons includes a printout of the questionnaire, and jurors may submit the questionnaire the old–fashioned way if they choose. But the county encourages folks to fill it out online.

Part of some internal paperless movement, I'm sure.

Funny thing, though. I don't recall being asked to fill out that questionnaire before, and I've responded to jury summonses from four Dallas locations now, I believe. But this time they were insisting on it.

Now, I had completed the questionnaire online at home so I didn't need to do it. But the woman asked all the prospective jurors who had not filled out the questionnaire to get in line to do so on computers that lined the wall of the Jurors' Room.

And when she made her request, I was amazed at all the people who stood up. In some ways, it was like the answer to a cliche. There were a lot of blacks, a lot of Hispanics, a lot of elderly people. Those are the groups that the studies tell us can't afford computers or won't embrace the computer age.

But those same studies tell us that young people are embracing every technological advance that comes along, yet I saw many young people who were in line. I looked at that line and marveled at how it snaked around the room. And it just kept growing as stragglers made their way in.

And still no judge.

Around 9:20, a lady from Juror Services stepped up to the microphone and began singing the praises of the computer system. At the same time, she had an apology — of sorts. "We usually try to get started assigning jurors to different courts by 9:30," she said. "Obviously, we're not going to make that today, but that's just because we have so many jurors today."

And, with that, she left. And we sat and waited for another 15 minutes — until a judge showed up. He gave us the oath and told us how great this computer system was (by this time, the line had gone all the way around the room, and the end could be found out in the hallway).

Well, shortly before 10:30, they started assigning us. Nearly two hours after we had been instructed to be in our seats ready to begin the jury selection process.

My juror number was in the second group called, so I took a badge and went with roughly six dozen people to the seventh floor, where we waited outside the designated courtroom for more than an hour. Then a bailiff came out, called each juror by name and passed out one–page questionnaires for each to fill out. We had about 25 minutes to do things like write our names, addresses, summarize our past jury experiences, as well as recapping the times when we were victims of crimes.

Then we were asked to list three prominent people we most admired. I don't think I had ever been asked that question before, and I really had to think about it for awhile. I finally decided that I couldn't think of any living people that I really admire so I wrote down three names of deceased people.

Well, the bailiff came back out shortly before noon and gathered up the questionnaires. We were asked to remain outside the courtroom. Meanwhile, the jurors who had been gathered for another case down the hall were dismissed.

At the time, I presumed they were being dismissed for lunch, but apparently they were turned loose for the day. I spent quite a bit of time in that hallway, and I never saw them again. So I conclude that one of two things happened — a jury was chosen in record time or some sort of plea agreement was reached.

My money is on a plea agreement.

Well, around 12:30, the judge called all of the jurors into the courtroom. We filed in, and the judge told us that the defendant was charged with five counts of robbery. While we had been sitting out in the hall, the defendant apparently had agreed to plead guilty so the prosecution was relieved of the responsibility of proving his guilt.

But that did not mean that we were being dismissed yet. Now, it was necessary to select a jury for the punishment phase of the trial.

This was a new one on me. Of course, it may be nothing more than a difference between state laws. Or it may be the evolution of sentencing that takes place over time.

I was fresh out of college when I covered the police beat and covered trials in Arkansas. And the only times I remember a punishment phase — which is like a second trial, but it is only concerned with the sentence because the guilt of the defendant has already been established — were in murder trials. In those instances, the jury had to decide between a life sentence or the death penalty.

Not every murder conviction involved that choice. If the murder was believed to be premeditated, a death sentence was an option. If it was believed to be unintentional, a death sentence was not an option.

And I'll admit I never covered a robbery trial. But I did cover non–fatality trials in which the defendants were convicted, and I do not remember a single instance where a punishment phase was involved.

Of course, that was awhile ago. Laws change. Procedures vary. And I am living in a different state now.

Anyway, this particular defendant has plead guilty to five counts of robbery. Now, under existing law in Texas in 2010, the distinction between theft and robbery is that theft applies to the taking of another person's property. It becomes robbery if another person is injured or killed or believes he/she is in danger of injury or death.

When selecting a jury, the lawyers cannot provide any of the specifics of the case so we were constantly being reminded that we were being given hypothetical scenarios that fit the parameters of the charge.

For example, it would be possible, we were told, for all five counts to have come from a single event. Immediately, my mind turned to images I have seen from security cameras — of a shadowy figure wearing a ski mask and wielding a gun in a bank or a convenience store.

But then I dismissed that thought. No one had mentioned the phrase "armed robbery." Unless Texas law doesn't differentiate, "armed robbery" is a specific kind of robbery that explicitly involves the use of a weapon. Garden–variety robbery means simply to take someone's property through violence or intimidation, whether it was deliberate or not.

As one of the attorneys explained to us, it could be something as simple (and, frankly, as admirable) as a young mother who is out of work (not hard to imagine in this economy) and goes to a nearby store to steal food for herself and her small children. She's been to the store before, and she knows the staff is sparse, and there is no security camera. So she snatches some candy bars and runs out of the store — and runs into five people on the way out, knocking each of them down and causing them to suffer some kind of injury — a bump on the head, a bruise on the knee, etc.

That would be five counts of robbery stemming from a single incident.

On the other extreme, it could be five separate incidents, and the victim in each case was either threatened (deliberately or not) with bodily harm or was, in fact, injured — possibly killed, although I think we can rule out that possibility. It's fair to assume, I think, that if any of the robberies had resulted in anyone's death (or actual injury, for that matter), the justice system would be concerned with a lot more than charges of robbery.

Well, the judge dismissed us for lunch and told us to be back outside the courtroom by 2 o'clock. We all held up our end of the bargain — but, once again, we had to wait ... and wait ... and wait. So I did some more people watching. I saw a woman who was a Nicole Kidman lookalike. And I got to see her a few times, as she walked up and down that hallway that afternoon.Again, I'm reasonably sure it wasn't Nicole Kidman — but she did bear a striking resemblance to the actress.

Finally, around 2:30, we were invited back in, and a young attractive woman from the district attorney's office questioned us about our ability to impose sentence.

Under Texas law, the judge told us before lunch and the young woman reminded us after lunch, we had three sentencing options for a count of robbery:

1. We could impose a prison sentence of up to 20 years on each count. (In the case pending before the court, it had not yet been determined whether the prosecution would request or the judge would impose that the sentences be concurrent or consecutive.)


2. We could impose a fine of up to $10,000 if we felt it was warranted.


3. And we could, if we had decided that a prison term of 10 years or less was appropriate, recommend probation.

The young woman wanted to know if we could consider the entire range of options.

And I would estimate that about two–thirds of the prospective jurors said they could. But some could not — and I was one of them. I told the young woman that, during my newspaper work, there had been a time when I covered the police beat and I covered trials in court. I conceded the possibility that all five counts could occur, unintentionally, in a single incident. But I said that, based on my own experiences, I find it hard to believe that the case did not involve multiple offenses — which, as far as I am concerned, puts it in a different category than a first–time offense.

In truth, a first offense doesn't really mean anything. Here's a hypothetical of my own. Someone could be stopped for speeding for the first time when he/she is 25. Let's assume that he/she got his/her driver's license at the age of 16 and had not been stopped for speeding in nearly a decade of driving.

Does that mean the driver was never guilty of speeding before? No. It simply means he/she had never been caught before. It might be a first offense. The driver may have been a model driver for more than nine years, always obeying the speed limits, always stopping at stop signs and stoplights and observing any other rules of the road. But, on this one occasion, perhaps the driver was faced with an emergency of some kind and got pulled over for speeding. That's certainly possible.

It's also possible that the driver was guilty of speeding quite often but had been shrewd enough to avoid being pulled over until he/she got sloppy.

There's no way we could know. All we know is that there is no record of speeding in the past. He/she may have been very good — or very good at being bad.

But multiple charges tend to mean multiple offenses on multiple occasions. Even if the defendant hasn't been charged before. The fact that he (and, in this case, it was a he) was probably charged with robbery on more than one occasion doesn't necessarily imply that he was never guilty of robbery before.

In any event, five charges suggest to me that it happened on more than one occasion. That suggests a pattern of behavior, and I find it hard to imagine a circumstance — even one in which the defense can satisfactorily establish that one of those occasions was the first time he committed the offense — in which I could recommend probation.

Anyway, that is what I told the young woman when she asked me if I could consider all the sentencing options. And she thanked me for my honesty.

After she finished talking to each potential juror, one of the defense attorneys got up and said the prosecution had already taken care of some of the territory he wanted to go over so he expected his portion of the questioning to go much faster. I'm sure that was fine with everyone. The time was 3:40.

And, indeed, his part of the proceedings did go much faster. He had specific questions for a few of the prospective jurors, most of which were based on their answers to the questionnaires. A few were related to people who worked (or had worked) in law enforcement. He wanted to know if that would affect their ability to reach a verdict. He spoke to some who had indicated that they had been victims of crimes. Could they be fair?

Then he sat down, and the jurors were told to go back into the hallway. The time was 4:10. About 15 minutes later, the bailiff came to the door and called out five names. These people were going to be asked clarification questions in the presence of the judge and the attorneys. So the rest of us waited and waited while each one went in and spent 5–10 minutes elaborating on their written and/or spoken responses.

While we were waiting, Nicole Kidman walked by again, heading in the direction of the elevators. Considering the time, I assume she was leaving for the day.

Then, around 5:10, all the jurors were called back into the courtroom and the judge read out the names of the 12 people who had been chosen to sit on the jury and the name of the single alternate juror who had been chosen. The rest of us were dismissed.

It was nearly 5:30. By the time I got to my vehicle, it was about 5:45. I faced a 12–mile drive to my apartment — and all the people who would be on the road at that hour.

And then, when I arrived home around 6:30, the day was over, nearly 12 hours after it began for me.

When I got up yesterday, I had mixed feelings about our judicial system. I still have mixed feelings. That hasn't changed.

But I do believe this country has the fairest, most impartial method for choosing jurors of any country in the world.

The system has its flaws. The compensation, for example, could be better. A few years ago, when I was last called for jury duty, they paid $6/day. But they changed. They still give you $6 for showing up for jury duty, but then, if you're picked for a jury, you'll be paid $40/day.

You won't get rich that way. Most trials only last a day or two. But when you think about the expenses people encounter in order to respond to a jury summons and serve on a jury — parking fees, the gas you burn driving to and from the courthouse, buying your lunch — $40 should be enough to cover them and leave jurors with a little extra.

It's a small price to pay to guarantee that people who are accused of things in America receive a fair trial.

Maybe that will change in the future. I've heard several reports about unemployed people who would not respond to a jury summons because it was too much of a hardship for them in this economy. With budget shortfalls, it's not hard to imagine the current rate of juror compensation becoming too expensive for some places to sustain.

I guess that is a symptom of the ripple effect this economy has on all aspects of American life.

We could have a debate about what is needed to encourage people to show up for jury duty. But we should never short–change our criminal defendants.

And that's what we will do if we try to get juries on the cheap.

As Long As We're Talking About Health Care ...

With health care reform the hot topic of discussion these days — that is, when the president isn't sitting down for a beer and a "teachable moment" on race relations — it's a good idea to revisit something that has caused a great deal of preventable suffering and death in America and the world — tobacco.

Tony Newman of the Drug Policy Alliance Network did precisely that last week in a commentary written for CNN.com.

"Cigarettes kill; 400,000 people die prematurely every year from smoking," Newman writes. "When we analyze the harm from drugs, there is no doubt that cigarettes are the worst."

A lot of things have changed over the years — in particular, attitudes about smoking.

I started smoking the way most people do, as a teenager. I remember once, when we were visiting my grandmother, I stepped outside to sneak a smoke. I didn't think anyone saw me or knew what I was up to, but after I returned to the house, my grandmother came up to me and let me know, without saying so, that she knew what I had done. "Most men smoke," she said to me.

That was probably true of the men of her generation. But, as we have learned more about the harmful effects of smoking, attitudes have changed. In 1965, the year after the surgeon general first connected the dots between disease and tobacco consumption, the smoking rate in the United States exceeded 40%. By 2006, it had been cut in half.

I quit smoking more than two years ago. It wasn't easy. It was pretty damn hard, actually. And, as I have said before, it is still difficult for me. I expect it to remain difficult for a long time to come. I've heard stories about people who still experience cravings 20 years after their last cigarette.

Knowing what I know now, I'm glad I gave up smoking, although I still can't really bring myself to refer to myself as a "former smoker." I refer to myself as a "recovering smoker" because I know that, like a recovering alcoholic, I'm just one slip away from being back where I started.

I have told my friends who still smoke — and, in part because of what I have accomplished, there are fewer of them today than there were two years ago — that I have definite opinions about tobacco use, but I'm not the kind of person who will crusade against something I once did. My best friend since high school recently gave up smoking on doctor's orders — he had suffered a heart attack. His daughter (my goddaughter) also gave up smoking.

I'm glad they did, but I didn't tell either one of them to quit. I believe adults should be allowed to make their own decisions.

Tobacco — especially in the nicotine–manipulated form that was peddled by the tobacco companies for years — is extremely hazardous, but it is legal. I was astonished to read in Newman's commentary that many people think it should be illegal.

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"The Drug Policy Alliance sponsored a Zogby Poll in 2006, and we were shocked to find that 45 percent of those polled supported making cigarettes illegal within the next 10 years. Among 18– to 29–year–olds, it's more than 50 percent."

Tony Newman

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Newman's response to that finding made a lot of sense to me.

"[W]ith all of the good intentions in the world, outlawing cigarettes would be just as disastrous as the prohibition on other drugs," he writes. "After all, people would still smoke, just as they still use other drugs that are prohibited, from marijuana to cocaine. But now, in addition to the harm of smoking, we would find a whole range of 'collateral consequences' that come along with prohibition. A huge number of people who smoke would continue to do so, but now they would be considered criminals."

I am glad, as I have written, that Congress voted to give the FDA authority over the tobacco industry. But I don't think the answer is to create a new group of criminals, as Newman points out.

I'm not a lawyer so those who are lawyers might disagree with this. But it seems to me that — with the exception of laws that prohibit violent behavior — laws don't exist to define and enforce morality. And it was on the basis of morality that alcohol was outlawed in this country during the era of Prohibition. The Eighteenth Amendment was passed under considerable pressure from the temperance movement, and it took another amendment to the Constitution to repeal it.

In contrast, the prohibition of marijuana has been in effect, essentially, for more than 70 years. Yesterday, as a matter of fact, was the anniversary of the passage of the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, which began the process that made marijuana and its byproducts illegal. No constitutional amendment was passed making it illegal. And morality — or the alleged consequences to public health — had nothing to do with it. It was, as Pete Guthier writes, the result of racism, fear, corporate protectionism, "ignorant, incompetent and/or corrupt legislators" and "personal career advancement and greed."

Public health and morality were never factors.

Actually, Guthier wrote a piece yesterday that pretty convincingly states that "harmlessness" is irrelevant.

Nothing, he writes, is completely harmless, even those things that seem harmless.

"[Y]ou may think that water is harmless, and it is, if you're drinking a glass," he writes. "However, it is clearly possible to fatally overdose on water, and floods kill people all the time."

Since my mother died in a flash flood, this observation, as you might guess, holds particular significance for me.

To further establish his point, Guthier provides a whole list of things that are legal but potentially harmful:

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"Easy ones ...

• Tobacco


• Alcohol

... but there's lots more:

• Eggs


• Milk


• Construction Work


• Taking a vacation


• Bridges


• Stairs

Contractor: So, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, I see here that you're asking us to put stairs in between the first and second floor in your new house. Well, we can do that, of course, but I do feel obligated to warn you that stairs aren't harmless.

• Buckets


• Electric Blankets


• Fishing


• Crossing the Street


• A cookie."

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In his piece, Guthier provides links to articles showing how all these things (with the exception of tobacco and alcohol, which need no elaboration) have the potential to be harmful.

Then he concludes with this: "When prohibitionists play the 'harmless' game, they're trying to distract people from the real argument — the harmfulness of prohibition."

And marijuana prohibition has already led to plenty of harm — a thriving black market, criminal records for otherwise law–abiding citizens, the loss of billions of dollars in annual tax revenue.

Actually, what we need to do is replace current drug policy with the common–sense approach that has been working with tobacco.

"[O]ur public health campaign around cigarettes has been a model of success compared with our results with other prohibited drugs," Newman writes. "Although we should celebrate our success and continue to encourage people to cut back or give up smoking, let's not get carried away and think that prohibition would eliminate smoking.

"We need to realize that drugs, from cigarettes to marijuana to alcohol, will always be consumed, whether they are legal or illegal. Although drugs have health consequences and dangers, making them illegal — and keeping them illegal — will only bring additional death and suffering."

Amen.

'Sexting' the One You Love

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"Sexting (a portmanteau of sex and texting) is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, primarily between cell phones."

Wikipedia

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This is not an easy thing for me to say, but, in many ways, things really have changed — a lot — since I was a teenager.

Oh, sure, some things haven't changed. The good–looking guys and girls still get together, and the relatively few who know they are good–looking — and are self–confident on top of that — are, most likely, still the envy of the vast majority of their classmates.

And most teenagers, whether they are counted among the "beautiful people" or not, have access to a car in which they play their music at excessive volumes.

But most teenagers today, it seems, also have cell phones. In my day (and, boy, do I feel like my grandfather when I say those three words!), the only phone in the house was on the kitchen wall. There was no privacy. If you were going to talk to someone on the phone in my house, you had to go into our kitchen. If it was around dinner time, my mother was probably in there, putting the finishing touches on the evening meal. At any other time, you ran the risk of being overheard by someone who came in to get something from the refrigerator while you were speaking on the phone.

Some of the teenagers I knew had phones in their rooms. But they were comparatively rare. And most of them merely had extensions of the home phone line, so anyone could listen in on an extension that was somewhere else in the house. A few had a personal phone line, but not many.

I'm not sure when mobile phones were invented. They may have existed when I was a teenager. But no one I knew had one. And when I first started hearing about them, I tended to brush them off as high–tech walkie–talkies.

In recent years, though, I've come to realize the many practical uses for mobile phones.

During the massacre at Columbine High School (by the way, next Monday will be the 10th anniversary of that event), many trapped students called 911 or friends or relatives on their cell phones. So did people stuck in the upper floors of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Countless people, young and old, have summoned help with their cell phones. Countless more have used them to call for directions when they were lost — although that's a function that has become less relevant as more people get access to GPS through their cell phones.

Anyway, the point is that these phones have helped people in ways that simply weren't possible when I was a teenager.

But, as cell phones have become more prevalent, so has the potential for abuse.

"Sexting," for instance.

Rather than define that term here, I'll just direct your attention to the Wikipedia definition at the top of this post. If you click on the link to Wikipedia, you can read about the history of "sexting."

Then come back and we'll continue.

(Pausing while reader familiarizes himself/herself with "sexting.")

Now that we all know what I'm talking about when I use the word "sexting," I'll proceed.

Going back to that old–school phrase here ... in my day, a phone was a phone. It wasn't a camera. It wasn't a computer (as an aside here, we did have cameras when I was a teenager, but personal computers were still in the future). It was a phone.

But today, a mobile phone is similar to a Swiss Army knife.

(Come to think of it, that may be an alien phrase to young ears, but a Swiss Army knife was a pocket knife that was much more than merely a knife. It had all kinds of gadgets in it — a screwdriver, a can opener, a bottle opener, scissors, a fork, a knife, a spoon. A Swiss Army knife was practically a compact tool kit. More elaborate ones probably came with lug wrenches and saws. Can anyone tell me if they still make Swiss Army knives?)

Mobile phones used to be just phones, but now they come equipped with cameras, computers, all kinds of stuff. You can check your e–mail on your cell phone these days.

And it seems that the smaller they become, the more there is in them. About 15 years ago, mobile phones were big, clunky gadgets, about the size of a brick, and some were nearly as heavy. Now they're about the size of a credit card — and almost as light.

Oh, and you can also use them for plain old conversations, too — but that is so 20th century.

So, too, I suppose, is the concept of "phone sex." I first started hearing about it in the '90s, I guess, although I would imagine the potential for that has been around since phones started to become fixtures in private homes.

Anyway, when the internet was still in its infancy, apparently, some people started exchanging phone numbers for that purpose by e–mail and in chat rooms, and there seemed to be something of a boom in popularity — for awhile.

And, for awhile there, "virtual sex" was a popular topic. From what I've heard, I gather that "virtual sex" referred to role playing in chat rooms.

But its appeal seems to have tapered off in recent years. I didn't understand that before. But now I think I know why.

"Sexting."

I hadn't heard much about it until lately. And now, to hear some people talk, it's the scourge of our times.

To me, it seems like the latest example of young people doing what young people do best — being curious about each other. And part of me is inclined to say, "Leave them alone! Let them enjoy being young." Our culture sometimes seems too prone to reducing things to their most basic and unappealing elements, and I am reminded of the words of Thelma Ritter in Hitchcock's "Rear Window" — "[Y]ou can't tell the difference between a petting party and a civil service exam."

But things have changed since Ritter's day.

As Susan Reimer points out in the Baltimore Sun, these nude images can take on lives of their own in cyberspace, regardless of initial intentions.

"[U]nlike love letters that can be tossed in the fireplace when the relationship is over," writes Reimer, "nothing in cyberspace ever really gets deleted."

Lately, it's been leading to some pretty extreme laws — jail time for distributing child pornography and registry as a sex offender? It's not good behavior, but, really, do we want to give kids criminal records for things like that?

The state of Vermont apparently has been rethinking its law, and that's good. More states need to use common sense when making these laws.

Clearly, it seems to me, parents and teenagers need to have more heart–to–heart conversations. But stay away from the fear tactics. Young people figured out that approach was a bunch of hooey when their parents tried to convince them they would become criminally insane if they smoked marijuana, which was blatantly false and forever tainted the fear factor, even when it was used legitimately.

If they lied to us about that, the thinking went, what else might they lie to us about?

Well, anything involving sex is way up there on the list.

And the risks of "sexting" are scary enough. No fictional embellishment is needed.

So let's keep things in a realistic realm. The technology has changed, but the human instincts are the same. The specifics are different than they were when I was a teenager, but, in general, not much has changed.

Do we really want to get the police and the courts involved?