Part of my “What it’s like to…” series.
It’s been a while since I wrote something for this series and having just spent the past three days serving jury duty, I figured why not? This is a lengthy one, but I wanted to document how it worked. So here we go….
I’ll admit it, I got that slip of paper in the mail announcing my juror summons and I groaned. Instantly my head rattled with ideas of how I could possibly get out of this, or at least reschedule it. I tried to reschedule it, but my request was denied. Bleh. So, off to court I went.
There I followed the sheep herd as we went through metal detectors and passed our bags through the obligatory X-ray machine thingy. Many people groaned about how we must all be the people who couldn’t come up with better excuses for getting off. Others related the process to being worse than getting a root canal done. Oh yeah, feel the love and excitement going around this group.
We sat in a big room full of seats and hoped our names wouldn’t get called. Many of us tried to read or just talk, but that was hard over the booming previously taped Entertainment Tonight show they were playing on the wall sized TV. The show was reporting more nonsense about celebrity lives, but then a clip came on about a brawl that happened in a court room. We all laughed. I don’t believe the courts meant to play a show that had that on it. Hah!
Then names started to be called. Mine was one of them. I shuffled along with my new sheep herd and moseyed into a court room. There we found the judge, a court aide, the plaintiff and his attorney, plus the defendant’s attorney. I noted that the walls were wood paneling, with the wood being the same color as the judge’s desk and the tables where council sat. Very monochromatic.
We were told that it was a civil case involving a slip and fall accident and that it was estimated to take 3 1/2 days. The jury would consist of eight people since it was a civil case. Names were randomly called for people to move into the jury box for questioning by the judge. As people were excused from the case, others were selected to take their place. I had no idea selecting a jury could be so tedious and time consuming. The judge reads off question after question for each and every person. He started to sound like that clichéd broken record player.
My turn came and I answered where I live, what I do, whether or not I’m married and have kids, etc. etc. I had to conference up at the judge’s desk with council because I said that I had been in an accident with injury. That was nerve-wracking. Standing in between council in front of a judge is a bit daunting, what can I say? I stammered a bit as I explained my dog bite incident, then was accepted as juror #7. I took a seat.
Watching who was getting excused by the judge or council I can guess that I was picked because I am female, white, employed, don’t work in the legal or medical field, nor am I married to someone who does. Plus, I don’t have kids that work in either field either. We did end up with one man on the jury, but he was the last chosen and I believe because of those left, few fit the mold I’ve described anyway.
The judge went over our responsibilities and introduced us to the jury room, then we were dismissed for the day. At this point I was still shaking my head in wonder and shock that I was sitting on a jury—and that’d I’d have to call in to work too.
The next day the jurors filtered into the jury room. We found out that some of us were excited to be there, although others were less than pleased. However, we’d all resided ourselves to make the best of it. What else can you do, eh?
This room, too, was wood paneling. It was small. No windows. There was a bathroom and a microwave and a big table with chairs. We spent a lot, and I do mean a lot, of time in this room. What you never see on TV is all the waiting around that goes on in court. The judge has other things going on so there are times when we’d sit in that room for an hour or more just chatting and basically hanging out. The judge was very nice and respectful of our time though, so he did his best to tell us how long we’d have in between in case we wanted to go make phone calls or get coffee or something.
We saw three witnesses that first day. The plaintiff, the defendant, plus one doctor. The next day we saw another doctor. I found the questioning to be tedious and dull, yet intriguing at the same time. It actually became like a puzzle for me, fitting all the pieces of information together to see what the picture really is. After the last witness, we experienced the most painful part of the trail…the explanation of the law. The judge goes over all the points of the law that pertain to the case, as well as the definitions for all the legalese. I tried very hard to pay attention here. My head hurt and eventually it sounded like how the adults speak in Charlie Brown cartoons. Talk about being overwhelmed….
Next began the jury deliberation.
The gist of the case is this: Around 5-5:30 one night a man was walking. It was snowy and the plows had pushed show over the grass so he went around. He stepped out of the street and onto the dirt and fell. There was ice under the snow. He fractured his wrist and tore cartilage, the latter created permanent damage which means he will always have pain (according to his doctor).
The question came into play, was the owner of the property (the company) negligent for not having cleared the snow? If so, was the negligence probable cause for the accident? The alternate question would be whether the plaintiff was negligent for having stepped there instead of going around. If yes, then we’d have to set of percentages of fault.
When we sat down to deliberate, many of us were siding with the defendant. We were thinking that the area is not a sidewalk, so the owner isn’t responsible for shoveling there.
Then someone noticed the bus stop sign.
We were given pictures of the scene as evidence and finally were able to see them up close to examine them. Turns out the area where the man fell is a bus stop. Even though it’s dirt around the bus stop, NJ law dictates that land that is designated as pedestrian area is consider a “sidewalk,” i.e. since it is a bus stop and labeled as such, it is an area designated for foot traffic. NJ law also dictates that commercial property owners are responsible for keeping “sidewalks” clear on their property, which in this case includes the land with the bus stop on it.
And yes, it sucks for the commercial property owner. I know this. They’ve been in that spot for nine years and never knew they had to shovel the bus stop. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but the law is pretty straight forward here, even if I’ve glossed over what it is a bit. Although I will point out that mention of the bus stop never did get brought up in trial. We asked about the law pertaining to it being a bus stop and the judge told us he couldn’t tell us that. I’m not sure why it wasn’t included in the case since we aren’t privy to how what evidence got there. So we had to rely on what information was given to us and take it from there.
The deliberation process was interesting. We had many questions, where the foreman had to write them down on a notepad, then ring the buzzer twice for the court aide to come. With each question, we’d get shuffled back into the courtroom for the judge to answer the question (or in most cases tell us he couldn’t answer it.) That was tough. We aren’t allowed to take notes and can only rely on our collective memory, so even if something is noted in the court records, we are not privy to that.
Surprising to me, we also had to come up with a the payout figures to the plaintiff on our own as well. Luckily we had someone with some swift thinking for number crunching so we came to a logical conclusion for that, at least to us. Then the foreman clicked the buzzer once, which meant we were ready with the verdict. We were called into court to announce it and the plaintiff thanked us on the way out. Tada. Jury duty was over.
All in all it was interesting and I learned a lot, but I am glad I didn’t get called for a criminal case since those can take a long, long time. I also go some inspiration for writing out of it which I hope to put to good use as soon as I can.
