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posted by Georgia McNamara 9:36 PM

Tuesday, March 06, 2001

This morning started off with much speculation regarding the fashion choices of the lawyers. Since day one, all three (two defense, one plaintiff) had worn the same color. Black on Monday, blue on Wednesday, olive on Thursday, black on Friday, and blue again on Monday. Did they coordinate every evening or show up in the morning and think, "D'oh!" And the court clerk has this amazing comb-over and I love to see him answer the phone--it puts his pate at risk of exposure.

We had a grueling morning of testimony. The wife of a plaintiff now deceased and the video testimony of another plaintiff (also deceased) were hard to hear, and the technical testimony from an expert was long. They gave us notebooks to take notes, but it's hard to figure out what's important--we don't know what we'll be ruling on since we haven't been given our instructions. We can glean some things, like this is strict product liability, from the lawyer-judge conversations, but not much else. Some people are taking copious notes, while others haven't cracked them open. Six more weeks of this was going to seem like an eternity.

This afternoon the judge announced he had good news and bad news and then told us that we were dismissed, that the case was not going to go forward based on a legal technicality. He emphasized that no one had won, and no one had lost. I don't know if that was the good or bad news--I was trying very hard not to smile.

I spoke to the lawyers on my way out, but they couldn't tell me what happened. I did ask them about jury selection, and the plaintiff's attorney said that she did like educated folks on a detailed case like this one. The defense attorney said that he wasn't necessarily concerned about education, but in personal injury cases like this one they look for people who aren't sympathetic.
posted by Georgia McNamara 4:08 PM

Monday, March 05, 2001

I brought Conor in with me today, and that's when I found out that the daycare in the courthouse doesn't change diapers. What kind of daycare is that? I mean, isn't that the point of having someone else take care of your child? He was having such a great time he decided to skip taking a nap and spend his time rearranging all the kiddie furniture. He was the only child in there all afternoon, so I wasn't too worried.

This whole process is amazing to me. They've got it down--basically, it's "insert jurors here". The incredible thing is that such important issues are determined by humans who can't sit still for over an hour. Don't get me wrong--I'm not saying we shouldn't have these frequent breaks. There's something very liberating about only having to decide what to have for lunch. The courthouse has a list of area restaurants, and a few of us are going to try to eat our way through it.
posted by Georgia McNamara 9:50 PM

Saturday, March 03, 2001

Friday was the first day of the trial, and we heard opening statements. One juror was 20 minutes late, and the judge let her off with a light warning. My frustration with that rose, especially after she was late coming back from breaks and lunch, to the point that when the judge announced a twenty minute afternoon break, I told her she only got fifteen.

Other juror personalities are starting to come out, too. One sociable woman sees this as a great chance to enlarge her circle of friends and has started planning some social events for us. I got a shoulder massage from an older woman who said that as a relaxation technique in her singing class the back row massages the shoulders of the front row, and then they switch. We're both in the back row, so we massaged each other.

We can't talk about the trial with each other, which is kind of like avoiding mentioning the big elephant in the room. But we do speculate on other trial-related things, like why we all got picked. I feel education had a big role in this. So far I've counted four people with post-graduate degrees and I've only polled six. It was the first question on the questionnaire, too.

The courthouse has free daycare, and so I highly recommend jury duty for that reason. Where else can you do your civic duty and get someone else to change diapers?
posted by Georgia McNamara 3:26 PM

Thursday started with the selection of the alternates, or as the judge called it "filling out the 6 pack". The first twelve jurors, myself included, were sworn in on Wednesday. Other than that, we don't know much about what's happening or how long anything will take. Gossip is rampant among us 12 regarding pay, lunch, and whether we need to pay attention. I don't think so, and during the selection of alternates, I started using my Pilot to read the paper and make these notes. I am the envy of my fellow jurors. Geeks rule!

Total hippie dude is still sitting next to me, and he says this process really is random, that it just seems to take forever to fill the last seats. To us, it seems like this is just the preamble & we're waiting to get started. But the trial has actually begun, and we're beginning to see where each side will be arguing.

One of the potential alternates began addressing the judge when he was called--cited a case involving the state of Illinois versus a grain elevator operator which overturned 1872 and then finished a three minute diatribe with, "But we should really address the issue of socio-economic distinctions, your honor." He was immediately excused.

A legal secretary had plenty of opinions about lawyers (didn't like them), but didn't know what burden of proof meant. She didn't last long. One woman who had been reading a novel through this whole thing was called and asked if she had been a juror & said no but had watched it on daytime TV. Defense lawyer got a laugh by asking if he'd be held to that standard. Judge got bigger laugh by asking if he'd be held to that standard, too. She was eventually excused.

One older Asian man who was called is a clerk at a hospital, and plaintiff's attorney asked if he had chance to read medical records in the course of his work, and he said yes, but he wasn't supposed to. When asked about prior jury service, he said he had served twice, but didn't want to talk about it. When pressed further, he said it was because he didn't like anyone on the jury and they didn't like him. The attorney asked if that was going to be a problem again, he said he didn't know, but we'd find out. He made the cut.

It's hard to stop rooting for jurors to make it, to end this process. It's quite tedious even though I'm not paying attention. There are less than 20 people left in the jury pool now--I can't imagine how many jurors they go through for high-profile cases. But we finally got six, once the attorneys used up their challenges, and so the trial starts tomorrow.
posted by Georgia McNamara 1:54 PM

Thursday, March 01, 2001

Wednesday was the beginning of jury selection. Watching the other prospective jurors was a facinating glimpse into the human mind--and a reminder that we are not all alike. One man said he couldn't serve because he was a priest of a religion of personal responsibility. His religion says that anything that happens to you is your own fault--you attract all sorts of things toward yourself, even car crashes and, presumably, jury duty. He was excused. Another guy was a Larry Bud Melman-type and when he was called he started talking even before he sat down--and never stopped--about his medical conditions, doctor's appointments, prescription refills until the judge excused him. He continued talking all the way out the door.

A retired kindergarten teacher said on her questionnaire that she really hadn't thought about whether or not damage awards were excessive, but was thinking about it now. The lawyer asked what she thought, and after a long silence she said she didn't know, she was still thinking.

My favorite person, though, was a total hippie (his slogan, "Don't Panic, Go Organic") who was dead on in calling the action. He was sitting next to me in the jury box after I'd been elevated from chair 16 to 6, but he hadn't been called. He just liked the view from the jury box and since there was an extra chair, they didn't ask him to move. He could pick out who the the lawyers were going to excuse early on, and even have a reason why. Sitting next to him was like having my own play-by-play announcer.
posted by Georgia McNamara 10:33 PM

On Monday, after reporting dutifully for jury duty I was assigned to a courtroom with about seventy other people. We were told this would be a two month trial, and the "financial hardships" were weeded out, we were given a questionnaire to fill out. Chock full of questions like, "Do you feel that damage awards are excessive", "What causes lung cancer", and "Do you know any Merchant Marines", nearly every one (even the yes/no ones) was followed by a "Please explain". I didn't, but some of my fellow candidate jurors did.

On Wednesday, we came back to the courthouse. There were about seventy people in the room who could do the full two months--a full house. They called eighteen names to start things off, and I was in seat sixteen. Both attorney's had copies of our questionnaires and it was interesting to see their system for tracking who was who. (What did they do before Post-It notes?) The plaintiff's attorney went first, and it was all that mixture of boring torture from school--you sat there listening to the long questions and dull responses from others, but you knew that at any minute it might be you. I was frantically trying to figure out what I'd written that they'd ask me about. I got asked a few questions, mostly clarification due to my excessively poor handwriting. But some people were downright hilarious. One woman who shares a name (but no genetic material) with a supermodel was asked why she'd written "dangerous vipers" after one question. She looked puzzled (and embarassed because we were all staring) and said she didn't know, what was the question? The defendant's attorney read her the question, which was "What do you know about asbestos?" She said she didn't know and I was waiting for her to say it was the voices in her head that asked her to put that down. Then she was asked a question about a legal issue and she gave a long, rambling response that I thought raised some very deep concerns about the criminal justice system and equality in general. The attorney asked what she meant and she paused and said, "I don't know." He said, well, maybe you meant {insert right answer here} and she said, "Yea, what you said." Then the lawyer asked about her brother, who worked in asbestos abatement, and she rambled on about his job and how hard it was and how dangerous it could be with all the dust in the air and that he told her that anyone who did that kind of work needed to watch out for the dangerous vipers. (Say it with a slight southern accent.)

She was excused for cause.
posted by Georgia McNamara 8:47 PM

Wednesday, February 28, 2001

This is the story of my tour of jury duty, and you get to be the judge (pardon the pun) of whether it's scintillating commentary or repetitive drivel. My goal is just to be a mildly entertaining website to while away a few corporate minutes. At least stick around until you find out why I called this 'Dangerous Vipers' in the first place--and why that still just cracks me up. Even more than the thought of grabbing the airline intercom in the galley next to my seat during a 6 hour delay due to snow in Dallas and announcing, "Attention Earthlings!"
posted by Georgia McNamara 6:45 PM