To start, some of you may have noticed I haven't been posting for awhile (and if not, what the heck am I even doing here?!). At the beginning of February I was placed on a 16-day jury trial. Now, that doesn't sound too bad. 16 days. I should be back at work in two weeks, right? WRONG. That is 16 days dolled out over 3 trial days a week totaling a month and a half of jury service, but oh wait, the trial doesn't run on time and suddenly you wake up one day and you are 86 years old and the trial has been going on for 50 years. Well, maybe not that bad, but that 16-day trial did become a 2-month trial. I thought I could handle writing a blog, coordinating 2 huge events at work, and jury duty at the same time, but alas I could not. I am awful at self-care (hence I have to blog about self-care in order to teach myself that it is okay to take a break). In order to maintain my sanity (and ensure that I didn't suddenly find myself snapping at an intern that I needed a double soy latte with extra foam at 135 degrees precisely, STAT) I took a few months off to handle jury service. Let me tell you, it was.....interesting.
So what is it really like to be placed on a 2-month jury trial? I tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly below.
1. There is no such thing as getting out of jury duty on a long civil trial
The jury waiting room is exactly how I imagine the waiting room of hell. Hundreds of silent, prospective jurors are dressed in their jury duty best (see: sweats and unbrushed hair. This is where I went wrong. I wore a blazer and partially blame that for being placed on a trial). Everyone looks like they had their soul sucked out by a dementor as they await their name being called. The lucky ones will take the day to read a book and maybe watch whatever movie is playing in the Jury Room (Marley and Me, because someone thought making people cry was a good idea) before being let go for the day, free to live their life for one more year.
I don't have an objection to serving on a jury. In fact, after having been on a mock trial team (and coaching mock trial for 2 years) I was downright excited the last time I was called. Of course, I was not placed on a jury that time, when I was unemployed and wanted to serve on a jury with all of my heart. When I received my jury call slip this year I thought, "Well, it wouldn't be too bad to serve on a 2-3 day jury now. I could do that. Perform my civic duty and get a few days off work." Then the unthinkable happened...
The loudspeaker blared, "Anyone who has unlimited days they can serve on a jury please get in line at the front of the room. That means that your employer doesn't limit your days. The only acceptable excuses are: your employer limits your available days, you are a freelance worker and can show this will cause you extreme financial hardship, or you have proof of a nonrefundable ticket out of state. This does not mean, 'I was thinking of going to Hawaii at the end of the month.' You must already have proof of purchase." The groan that erupted from the room was the same sound I imagine would happen if you told a kindergarten class that recess would be canceled for the rest of the year.
I frantically called my employer asking to (again) affirm that our human resources department didn't restrict days of jury service because if not I would need to get in line. Unfortunately, that did not change the answer, I had unlimited days.
Well, if it's a 16 day trial, at least it will be a criminal case I thought gleefully (I am only partially ashamed to admit this. I felt worse about that until people would ask me if the case was civil or criminal and would reply "Ugh, I am so sorry" when I said civil). I took my call slip for the courtroom and stumbled into a woman who informed me that the judge in that courtroom only hears civil trials. Dang it! Looking like child who just had her lollipop taken away I sauntered off to the courtroom and prepared for my best Tina Fey impression.
When we got to the courtroom we were lined up and marched in. I was immediately called to sit in the juror number 7 slot. After explaining the facts of the trial (which are hidden somewhere in this blog post), we were asked a series of questions about our biases. Almost no one was let go. The words "I am biased towards the defense, and I am running a campaign for 25,000 students in March and this case will not have my full attention" came out of my mouth verbatim (I didn't even need to lie, all of that is true) and they still didn't let me go. Another juror said, "I believe lawyers who bring frivolous lawsuits should be shot," and he was kept on. In the end, very few of the initial jurors were dismissed and we were sworn in.
I would like to say I handled it with grace and class. Instead, it ended with me ugly crying in the bathroom because I was overwhelmed with how much I had on my plate. Overall, this is how I felt about both attorneys on my first day.
The attorneys didn't take no for an answer, and I found myself locked into a 16-day civil trial.
2. It gets tedious as hell
If I learned anything from jury duty it is that Legally Blonde and Law & Order lied to me. No one enters the court room to win the case with hair care tips, or gets the jury to gasp in shock as the suspect incriminates themself. Instead, this case involved months of sitting in a room and listening to testimony about the frequency and consistency of bowel movements. I have never in my life woken up and thought, "I would love to go sit in a room for 8 hours and listen to other people talk about going to the bathroom," and yet that is where I found myself. Despite best intentions, our courtroom started late almost every single day which meant a lot of time spent in the hallway. My number 1 tip: Use the bathroom before going into the courtroom. You do NOT want to be the one juror who has to pause the case (which means everyone, lawyers and jury included, need to leave the courtroom) because you didn't go to the bathroom. If you do this, other jurors will smile and laugh, but in our hearts we will always see you as a black pit of despair. Think 'if Gollum and Darth Vader' had a baby and that scratches the surface of how jurors will feel about you.
Actual footage of me entering the court room:
3. Life goes on without you
Just because you suddenly find yourself spending almost 30 hours a week in a courtroom doesn't mean that life suddenly stops. Birthdays will happen, work projects will come up, you will have to cancel plans with friends. This was the hardest thing for me to come to terms with. I am an overachiever with a very real fear of disappointing people. Realizing I couldn't do everything I wanted to and that I needed to scale back was very hard for me. If you do get placed on a long trial, be willing to accept help. I am forever thankful for the grace of my friends, family, partner, and coworkers who stepped in to cover projects for me, helped me with groceries and making lunch, listened to me complain (without info on the case of course!), and dealt with me swaying between temper and tears. February and March were two of the busiest months of my life between jury duty, personal life, and professional responsibilities, and I wouldn't have gotten through it without my support system.
4. People will gradually start to go insane
The decor of our courtroom can best be described as revolutionary war meets mariner design. Directly across from the jury box was a painting of a sea captain with a crazy look in his eye.
At one point our judge read aloud a note which had been passed to him from a juror which stated, "I can't stand it. I can't shake the feeling that that crazy captain is staring at me. It makes me uncomfortable. Is there any way we can take it down?" Needless to say, after that note the only piece of decoration I consistently looked at was the captain. During breaks I even took to imagining an elaborate backstory for him. When you have to spend every day with the same group of people listening to the same evidence in the same room, gradually people begin to lose it.
5. Court employees are usually pretty good people
As much as I complain about jury duty, my courtroom staff were amazing. Right after being sworn-in as a jury, our judge knew many people were not happy about it so as a welcome present he gave every juror a freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie (He also did that after our court case ran weeks longer than expected). In addition, at 3 PM every day we would have a chocolate break (and if we were falling asleep additional chocolate breaks). Great for morale, though not great for my waistline.
One of the other great things about my judge is that he allowed jurors to ask questions of any witnesses. After a witness had testified for both sides, our judge would call for juror questions. We would draft any questions, pass them to the court attendant, and the judge would review them to determine the legality. If the question was acceptable to ask, the witness would be asked the question and have to answer. I think that this aspect alone was rewarding enough for sitting through 2 months of trial.
The jobs of court employees are hard. I have no idea how our stenographer can type so fast without a break, how our court attendant dealt with the jury's annoyance over trial delays, how the judge committed to remaining impartial. They were all the shining stars of jury duty.
6. Even if you are too sick to go to work, you aren't too sick for Jury Duty
I came to jury duty with a bottle of cough syrup, migraine meds, prescription cough pills, lozenges, emergen-c, 2 water bottles, and a box of tissues (yes, my own box of tissues). I was in contact with my doctor on more than one occasion from the court house. I hadn't been that sick in years. I was in physical pain from coughing so much. At one point the judge paused the trial because I was coughing too much and during break I slept for an hour on a bench outside of the courtroom. I wasn't the only one either. Our entire jury was sick throughout the trial. We lost one juror to the flu, but the rest of us persevered through illness for the trial. If I had been that sick during a work day, I absolutely would not have gone to work. Other jurors expressed the same sentiments. If all of us had called out, the trial would have been postponed. However, all of us persevered in order to ensure the trial ran on schedule.
7. It will not, in fact, help you get in shape
The elevator situation in the courthouse is a disaster. There are 5 elevators to service thousands and thousands of courthouse attendees. If you wait for an elevator, you could wait 20 minutes only to have some hasty lawyer in a jazzed-up suit elbow you in the side in order to knock you out of the way to get the last spot in the the elevator (I am not bitter at all). Therefore, the only other option is to climb the stairs. I don't have what it is about the incline of these stairs, but I was immediately winded after 1.5 stories. I have climbed Vesuvius, I would breeze up the six stories to the parking structure every day, but having to climb the 6 stories to get to my courtroom 2 times a day was some of the harshest physical activity I have ever had to complete. When I first started the case I remember thinking "At least I will get more in shape." No. I did not. Somehow at the end of my service I was having even more trouble climbing the stairs, likely due in part to the discovery of toasted cheese bagels in the cafeteria half way through the trial.
8. It refreshed my faith in the justice system
I am the first the admit there are huge problems with our justice system, especially how minorities are treated. In this case, however, I walked away feeling much better about the system. Despite annoyance at the beginning, every juror took the case seriously, showed up every day on time (even while sick), and gave thoughtful deliberation once in the jury room. While I hope to never be on trial, I walked away feeling that if I was every on trial, I would want a jury to hear the case like the one I sat on.
So what was the case?!
So I know you have all been reading patiently (see: screaming at your computer and angrily scrolling) to find out, what was the case that explains why Cambria ignored my text messages for numerous months.
The case I served on was....drum roll please....! 3 counts:
Medical Malpractice (hence all that testimony about bowel movements), False Imprisonment, and Intentional Infliction of Emotional Damages. The plantiff's case was that she brought her mother to the hospital and her mother eventually passed away due to negligence of doctors. She also claimed that she was falsely imprisoned during her time at the hospital and that she was denied the ability to visit her mother. It also says a lot that after hearing 2 months of testimony that we nearly unanimously sided with the hospital. This case was intense to say the least. From witnesses talking back to the judge, to lawyers sticking their tongues out and bickering in the court room, to some argumentative questions from both sides. While I won't put the details of the case in writing, those who have now heard them have pretty much all said, "Wait! It took you two months to hear all of this?"
And there it is, everything I learned from being on a 2-month jury trial. Now bring in the dancing lobsters
Feature Image from Karen Neoh.