My husband was a young, unshorn Vista volunteer in Washington State when he received a citation and court date for an errant motorcycle tag. He wrote his father for advice. The response was a simple postcard: “Let there be no levity in the courtroom.”

I imagine his father chuckling as he stamped the postcard. His father was a judge.

I don’t think the advice helped. It certainly didn’t help the woman in our recent jury pool, because she obviously hadn’t heard it. When the prosecutor asked her if she had any experience with alcohol abuse, she replied something very close to, “Only when I drink it.”

I don’t think she meant to be funny.

The old joke is that no one wants to be tried by a jury of people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty. On this morning, everyone arrived looking harried, some in business attire, a few in jeans, at least one wearing shorts and a T-shirt, which he probably hoped would increase his odds of being dismissed. Among us were a physician, an attorney, a welder, a landscape contractor, a couple of middle-age gentlemen who were embarrassed but compelled to state they were unemployed, a student, a school cafeteria worker, a couple of stay-at-home mothers, and a overtly irritated hospital director. Before the impaneling, or as my mother calls it “the impounding,” everyone was busy sharing excuses for why they didn’t have time to serve.

On the rare chance that you’ve never been in a jury pool, the process is simple. Your group of 30 or so is assigned to a trial. You enter the courtroom with the attorneys, judge and defendant. Twelve names are called. Juror No. 1, please take your seat. Your seat in the jury box is a chair. Nothing fixed and substantial. Just, a chair.

Everyone knows how to get out of jury duty. You only have to claim some bias that will keep you from listening fairly, a bias that’s pretty obvious from the personal questions the attorneys ask. It’s quite a process, sitting with a group of folks you don’t know from Adam and answering questions so personal I guarantee there are family members who know less about you than the courtroom soon will.

“Have you ever, or has anyone close to you ever, been charged with driving while intoxicated? Would you please tell us about that?”

The process is uncomfortable and revealing and gruelingly slow. Yet as soon as each potential juror sat in the jury box and turned to face the defendant, the irritation vanished. Every single person said they would do their best to be fair and impartial. Even the person with a family history of rampant alcoholism, and the person whose spouse was permanently disfigured by an inebriated driver, and yes, even the harried administrator who looked like she could use a drink – each said they could listen fairly and without prejudice.

No one used the easy out. Sitting in that chair, facing the real live human defendant, made us better than we were.

And then: “Do you believe it is possible for a good person to make a mistake?”

Could anyone say no? We are each an impressive accumulation of mistakes, even with our best intentions. We say we will do the right thing but then we reach for the cookie, forget to meditate, swear in front of our children, nudge up the speedometer. This is what it means to be human. We pick up the pieces of our best selves and try again. A second chance, a third, whatever it takes. As Rumi says, Ours is not a caravan of despair. Even if you have broken your vows a thousand times, come.

There is an almost universal intention among young adults nowadays to make a positive change. Yesterday, I asked a few about their hopes and dreams. Every single one said their hope was to make the world a better place. Their great common fear was not accomplishing what they set out to do, not living up to the standards they set for themselves: honesty, accountability, integrity. Not sharing their talents and using their experience to help others.

These motivated young adults have likely seen the inside of a courtroom but not as jurors. One was a former gang leader; another a young mother with a family history of incarceration; another a frustrated Triangle teen who dreams of writing poetry. One girl dreams of someday flying in a plane. Another of seeing the ocean. But mostly they dream of making a difference for someone else.

We are all good people. We are all failed people. Do we judge ourselves on our worst failures or on our best efforts?

The U.S. is the only country in the western world that sentences 13-year-olds to die in prison. We are the only state in that country that charges all children as adults when they turn 16, no matter how trivial the misdeed. Witness the young man who stole a piece of paper at school. Larceny? Really?

We are better than our worst choices. We have a few days left to make that truth tangible.

Sign the petition North Carolina Get Children out of the Adult System at chn.ge/LPKJfu