Juror 842

Last week I spent Mon­day through Wed­nes­day per­for­ming my civic duty as a juror in a civil trial. A few obser­va­tions follow, skip down the most enter­tai­ning one.

• At least two of the dullest cra­yons in our box barely had the cog­ni­tive capa­city to deter­mine where on the block the courthouse is. If I’m ever the defen­dant in a jury trial, I’d like to insist that my “peers” at least be able to pass a Turing test.
• The jurors’ ins­truc­tions are to not form or reveal an opi­nion until deli­be­ra­tions; we are sup­po­sed to only absorb know­ledge about the pre­sen­ted evi­dence and tes­ti­mony and delay appl­ying rea­son. As I learn new facts I not only eva­luate their cre­di­bi­lity, but apply them to my little model of the world to find out whether they fit, and to adjust the model to make room if neces­sary. It’s just not pos­si­ble for me to remain opi­nion­less until the “think” lamp is lit. Nor is it pos­si­ble for many others to not talk about the case, apparently.
• What biza­rre set of his­to­ric deci­sions led to a court repor­ter lis­te­ning and re-​​speaking every word utte­red into a gas-​​mask like mic­rophone, where speech-​​recognition soft­ware con­verts it to text?
• The attor­neys on both sides of my case were ill-​​prepared and disor­ga­ni­zed. An hour spent before trial for­mu­la­ting an out­line for their pre­sen­ta­tion of evi­dence and orga­ni­zing docu­ments could have tur­ned this three-​​day trial into an afternoon.
• The top con­cern on most jurors’ minds is get­ting back to their nor­mal lives in a timely man­ner. If either side had dis­pla­yed through their actions that they valued the court’s time, it might have won them the case.
• The defen­dant in this case filed a knee­jerk coun­terc­laim for legal mal­prac­tice. There was no subs­tance behind this, although a coun­terc­laim of fraud might have stuck. The mal­prac­tice attempts only was­ted time and seriously dama­ged the cre­di­bi­lity of the defense.
• The plaintiff’s coun­sel used clo­sing argu­ments to put on an angry show, snar­ling as he proc­lai­med his dis­gust at the defense. Even though his words rang true, the melo­drama tur­ned off and alie­na­ted most of the jury.
• During voir dire we were asked if we had any family mem­bers who were law­yers. I sha­red that my grand­father was both a cor­po­rate attor­ney and county pro­se­cu­tor. That wasn’t rea­son enough to dis­qua­lify me.
• Late in the trial, I noti­ced one of the wit­nes­ses wai­ting to be called was a neigh­bor in my buil­ding. I brought it to the judge’s atten­tion, and dis­cus­sed with the attor­neys, but that wasn’t worth dis­qua­lif­ying me.
• Also during voir dire, I brought up that Kris­tan had been called to the same case this sum­mer. I thought it soun­ded fami­liar and remem­be­red enough detail that they knew it was the same one, even if I had to wait until it was over to con­firm with her. Even that didn’t get me dis­qua­li­fied! Before it was over (and hence before I could share the coin­ci­dence with her), Kris­tan reca­lled that she had the same juror number.
• It pro­bably would have been in the best inte­rest of the defense to cha­llenge me, but not for any of the above rea­sons. The case was fairly com­pli­ca­ted, the jury was impa­tient, and when deli­be­ra­tions were to being opi­nions were quite diver­gent. Thank­fully, trai­ning and expe­rience in run­ning mee­tings and buil­ding con­sen­sus allo­wed me to volun­teer as fore­man and get a ver­dict in less than 45 minu­tes. I sus­pect a less orga­ni­zed ses­sion would have resul­ted in no dama­ges being awar­ded, but we gave the plain­tiff most of what he wanted.
• Which was $5,500. For 3 days of the court’s time and 12 citizen’s lives. We were paid $18 a day, so we added $648 to court costs. If we were paid a con­ser­va­tive legal rate of $125/​hr, that would have been $36,000. Neither side would have taken that risk.