Friday, November 07, 2008

Racing’s Favorite Juror

My first reaction, when a juror told a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that her father had died so she could be excused to attend the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita, was that the Eclipse Awards people ought to give her an expenses-paid trip to their big dinner in Miami Beach in January. If the budget for the Eclipse banquet is a concern, let the Handicapper of the Year pay his own way this time.

After all, Marian Hinnant was someone the sport could embrace--she risked a contempt-of-court citation to go to the races. Even journalists not entrenched in racing were applauding Hinnant's cheeky ploy (her father, Ralph Hinnant, is a reasonably healthy 71 and lives in North Carolina). "Unless Ms. Hinnant has some personal issues that are so serious that should have kept her off the jury in the first place, she may become the patron saint of jury scofflaws," wrote Patt Morrison in her blog for the Los Angeles Times.

But then Morrison, like me, had some sobering second thoughts. Writing about a shortage of jurors, she said: ". . . The quest for jurors might be even harder now. After all, the reasoning could go, what's a little ducking of a summons when a federal juror ducked out on ongoing deliberations for a horse race?"

This wasn't a garden-variety trial that Hinnant was attending. She and 11 other jurors were deciding the fate of Ted Stevens, the 84-year-old Alaska senator who, at the end of his campaign for re-election, was facing seven felony counts related to accepting $250,000 in gifts and renovations to his mountain cabin home. With an alternate juror taking over for Hinnant, Stevens was found guilty on all seven counts. But despite that, Stevens is leading his Democratic opponent, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage, by less than 4,000 votes with tens of thousands of absentee ballots yet to be tallied. Stevens, whose name is on the international airport in Anchorage, plans to appeal his conviction.

On the telephone from Washington, Marian Hinnant said that she wasn't sure whether she would have voted for a Stevens conviction. "There were some bribes involved," she said, "but a lot of people in high places--even presidents--have taken bribes. I knew horse people in Kentucky who took bribes."

Careful, sugar, talk like that could jeopardize your possible free trip to Miami Beach.

Hinnant took a red-eye flight out of Los Angeles back to D.C. the night after the end of the Breeders' Cup, but Federal District Court in Washington did not catch up with her until a week later. "I guess I wasn't paying attention to the messages on my answering machine," she said. When she finally appeared before the judge, Emmet G. Sullivan, to explain the absence of a funeral for her father, she inadvertently filibustered. Sullivan cut her off in mid-screed, apparently excused her without a reprimand and said: "I am thoroughly convinced you would not have been able to deliberate." Sullivan could go on to become an NBA referee. He obviously subscribes to no harm, no foul.

Hinnant, 52, told me that she works at the rental counter for Avis in Washington's Union Station. There had been a news account that said she was a paralegal in the mortgage industry. "I don't know where that came from," said Hinnant's federal public defender, A.J. Kramer, suggesting that Hinnant was telling the truth about her Avis job.

Avis, schmavis, I was dying to know how Marian made out at the betting wickets at Santa Anita. If only she had hit the pick six, or at least collared the juicy pick four toward the end of the day, to neatly tie up the bundle. "I cashed a couple of small bets," she said, and couldn't remember the specifics. "I'm not a very big bettor. I bet mostly to show." I don't know if she told this to the judge, but on Breeders' Cup Friday, the first day she missed out on jury deliberations, she didn't even know the races were being run. She spent the day touring one of the Hollywood studios.

At least she didn't go shopping. Although Hinnant doesn't enhance the handle, she is no racegoing novice. She said she worked for several years, through the mid-1990s, in the payroll department at Gainesway Farm in Kentucky. Bates Motel, Blushing Groom and Unbridled are some of the sires she remembers being there during her stay, and she said that she was on hand at Belmont Park in 1990 when Unbridled won the Breeders' Cup Classic. She said she's also attended Breeders' Cups at Lone Star Park, Gulfstream Park, and at Santa Anita in 2003. "Hollywood Park wasn't open," she said, "but I went over there just to take some pictures. I think Hollywood's a beautiful track." Last summer, she spent at few days at Del Mar.

Before we hung up, I asked Hinnant if her father was going around North Carolina telling people that, like Mark Twain, reports of his death were greatly exaggerated.

"I've talked to him once since I got back," she said. "I don't know that he even knows anything about any of this."