So, I got a notice in the mail a little over a month ago from the city…apparently, I’d been selected for jury duty…… The plan was for me to appear at the civil courts building downtown on Nov. 3rd at 8:00 am and wait to see if I get selected.
Quite honestly, it was a fascinating experience. I got there a bit late (a comedy of errors going on there, forgetting my summons after parking, having to get cash from the ATM to pay for parking, but the ATM not having any cash to give out, etc…), but generally you hang around in this large room with, literally, 500 other people (there were two rooms like this available), until you get selected. There was a lunch break, but otherwise, you sit in a room and wait. Thankfully, I took my DS along and played some Phoenix Wright to pass the time…
Every 30 – 45 minutes or so, the voice over the loudspeaker would read off juror numbers and have you all come downstairs to a separate seating area where they could look at the group (making sure they got a good sampling of young/old, black/white/hispanic, etc.), and then they’d send you off to your designated room.
I got called around 3:15, so I was one of the last groups to get to go. Around 40 of us were taken across the street to another building where we had to answer a variety of questions from the two lawyers, whittling us down to a group of 14 (12 of which would decide a verdict, and the other 2 would be alternates). Of course, I was kept on and had to return the next day (Election Day) to serve on the jury.
After voting at 6:15 am, I went to the court around 9:45 to serve. I won’t go into the details of the case here, but essentially, it was a case involving a car accident and who was at fault. We ended up deciding in favor of the person bringing the suit, mostly because their lawyer was much more effective in his arguments and the defense was…well…not so effective…
The most interesting part for me was the “awarding of damages” portion… I personally tend to err on the side of not awarding “pain and suffering,” but the other jurors felt it was appropriate and, in the end, they were probably right. I guess it’s just hard to come up with a monetary value to decide what something so abstract as “pain” or “suffering” is worth. Especially considering that I haven’t ever been in an injurious accident where I felt I was owed something for all I had just been through. Figuring in the length of the court case, the car repairs, the lost work due to physical therapy, and the costs to the lawyers hired, we felt that going above and beyond the monetary value of the medical treatment alone was just and right.
Anyway, I’ve served on a jury now. And as the judge pointed out, it isn’t very often that one gets to perform two civil duties in a single day: serve on a jury, and voting. Both of which are things that many people around the world aren’t allowed to do.
