I had jury duty a few weeks ago. (Here in Baltimore City, it’s one day or one trial.)
At about 10:00 that morning, jurors 1-400 were told to report to one of the courtrooms. About 100 or so of us packed into the room. The judge came in, introduced himself, and started to talk about the case. It was a civil case about a woman suing a company about a 2nd mortgage.
After going through the prelimanaries (does anyone know the plaintiff, the defendants, or the attorneys), he told us the biggie. “The case is expected to last two weeks. Would this present a hardship to anyone?” Of course, many hands flew up in the air. The judge spent the greater part of an hour interviewing people and sending them out. By the time he finished, there were 23 people left - including yours truly. (My company pays up to 4 weeks of jury duty.)
Then they announced the jurors, and juror #342 - me - got picked first. Foreman!
The trial itself was pretty interesting - we had to guess who was lying, etc. There was lots of time off, too - the standard lunch break is 1 1/2 hours. There was one day where we had a 3 1/2 hour lunch, got back in to the court, and we were then dismissed for the rest of the day. We also had another day with a 2 1/2 hour lunch break. And since the courthouse is right near the Inner Harbor, there was plenty to do. There was also a used book store 1 block down the street.
It sounds like you had fun. I don’t think I could do the whole jusy thing. Too much expected of me. Too much having to pay attention. Too much boredom.
Too much of my not giving a damn what happens to people.
I’d always be afraid of getting called for jury duty (I was once, but it never went anywhere), but I feel confident they wouldn’t want me to take part in the trial.
That’s why I like people like you, to do the right thing for me.
Soooooooo … What was the verdict? Any jury room shenanigans? Was there one lonely holdout in the jury room? Did the judge have to yell out “One more outburst out of you and I’ll clear this courtroom!”
KVS,, how did you determine who was lying? As an attorney who tries a lot of cases, I’d love to know the process your jury went through to determine credibility.
Also, do I understand that you were foreperson by virtue of being the first juror selected? In GA, the jury elects a foreperson. There's an old joke about a jury that, by a fluke, had 12 lawyers on it. After 3 days of deliberation, the judge instructed the baliff to see if they were close to reaching a verdict. The baliff came back and said, "They're still giving their campaign speeches for the foreperson election".
What did the lawyers do that you liked? Didn't like? Did you ever feel like they insulted your intelligence? Were they ever too theatrical or do anything or pursue a line of questioning that didn't work or that backfired? I feel like, if you answer these questions, you should charge me for Continuing Legal Ed!
For myself, I watched the defendants and the plaintiff when they were listening to testimony, to see what their reaction was during the testimony. The plaintiff did a lot of eye rolling. One of the defendants was very nervous. You couldn’t pull a needle out of his butt with a tractor. There seemed to be a lot of contradiction in the defendants’ testimony.
Yes.
It was fascinating to see how the lawyers would get around a sustained objection. For example, one of the lawyers would say, “Did you drive your blue car to the market?” “Objection!” “Sustained!” “Do you own a car?” “Is it blue?” “Do you drive the car?” “Did you drive it to the market?”
The judge told us that the attorneys might want to ask us some questions after we were dismissed, so we got to ask them some as well. The defense attorney told us that he had offered to settle with the plaintiff the day before we reached a verdict. They offered her more than twice what we eventually awarded her, but she had refused.
We found mostly for the plaintiff. There were no shenanigans, but there was one disagreeable person. Luckily, he was an alternate, so he didn’t deliberate. There was one holdout for quite a while, but we managed to convince her to see things our way.
I did jury duty once. It was a pretty clear case of a drunk driver swerving out of his lane and creaming a car full of HS students on their way to graduation. Head on. They were ok, but they missed their graduation. Guy said he had one glass of wine with his mother. EMT said he stunk of alcohol from 3 feet away, and there was a spilled beer in the car. :rolleyes: That and the huge skidmarks from the kids’ car and the complete lack of them from the drunk guy.
Kudos to Knighted Vorpal Sword for doing your civic duty. And major, major, major judos to Knighted Vorpal Sword’s employers for giving paid leave for jury duty. Whoever that company is, they rock until the wheels fall off.
And thanks for posting this!!!
I had forgotten to call, I’m on call all this month. Luckily I didn’t have to go in, but if I had, and haden’t seen this??
I used to work for a company that didn’t pay for jury duty. The executive vice-president was an attorney, so I shamed him into paying me for the day. It didn’t stick, though - when the company got big enough to have a personnel department and regulations, it was noted that there would be no pay for jury duty.
