Juror Number 2: The Story of a Murder, the Agony of a Neighborhood

This riveting memoir recounts the author’s experience on a jury in a murder trial and his subsequent investigation of the conditions in East Harlem that led young people to be involved in drug-selling and criminal activity. Besides the trial itself, the book is the story of the failures in NYCHA housing projects, the schools and the criminal justice system, and the efforts of a handful of educators, nonprofit leaders and criminal justice reformers to find pathways to success for these young people.In the author’s words, As a juror in a criminal trial, your vote is one of 12 determining whether the accused goes free or is punished. When the charge is murder, you never forget that a decision to convict can take away his liberty for the rest of his life. I had thought that our jury’s vote at the conclusion of the trial would be the end of the story. But I was mistaken. For me the jury verdict was only the beginning. In its review, which appeared in Publishers Weekly (December 2020), BookLife says, Novelist Sigel (The Kermanshah Transfer) turns his sharp eye for detail to a beautifully written hybrid of true crime and memoir. After serving as a juror on a 2017 Manhattan murder trial, The People v. Abraham Cucuta, Sigel was moved to examine the societal ills that cause underprivileged youth in New York City to turn to selling drugs and joining gangs. Sigel ably profiles formerly incarcerated individuals who turn their lives around and then return to their old neighborhoods in an attempt to dissuade younger men from getting caught up in the losing game of guns, crime, and jail. True crime buffs and fans of memoirs will be enthralled by Sigel’s irresistible mix of clear reporting, empathy, and thoughtful examination of the link between poverty and violence.