Jury duty

A couple of months ago, I went to get the mail and quickly noticed that there was a jury summons for me in there. I have never before been picked for a jury, so was kind of excited. But then it hit me before I even opened it that it would probably be for the week of our vacation.  Now, I don't mind doing my civic duty and all, but not when I should be laying on the beach with a good book and my family.  I slowly opened the letter and sure enough....it was the week of our beach vacation. The one we had already paid for and were looking forward to!!

So, I quickly jumped on Facebook and asked my friends if anyone had ever gotten their jury duty delayed and got all kinds of advice.  I emailed the jury duty office and explained my situation and they replied quickly with a new date for jury duty. Thankfully, this one worked much better for me and my situation.

It was this week, so the kids were at least in school for most of the day.

I was to report to State Court of GA in Cobb County at 8 am on Monday morning.  I parked in the jury parking lot and walked the few blocks to the courthouse where I went through security.  It is obviously set very sensitive since I set it off twice a day (in the morning and after lunch) every day I was there and got wanded every time.  Just as a side note- I really missed my grandmother this week as she lived right next to the jury parking lot and I could have seen her every day and had lunch with her every day if she was still alive. I miss MaMa a lot but especially this week!!

So, I went to the jury assembly room where we all were sitting and standing. We watched a video about jury duty and what it would be like. Then we got instructions for the week.  We were to check in each night after 6 to see if we would need to report the next day, unless we were on a trial.  There was probably about 100-125 people in there. Roll was called and then Judge Proctor (the presiding judge for the week) came in and swore us all in collectively as a group.

Now, I knew that in all likelihood I would be spending most of my Monday at least in the jury assembly room, so I brought PLENTY of things to keep me occupied. I brought my calender to exchange the months, some HM books and catalogs to look through, several magazines and sales papers, 4 newspapers that I am behind on reading, and the book for Sunday School that we are studying (CRAZY LOVE) where I needed to read 5 chapters to catch up. I was really kind of looking forward to having some down time to just read and get caught up.  I know there were plenty of things for me to do here at the house and with work but I was on jury duty so I couldn't do those things but I could read and plan and organize, right?? 

Well, I got about 10 minutes to do that stuff when they called for a jury in one of the courtrooms.  They said they were going to call 30 names and for you to line up and go to courtroom 4a in a line as they called your name.  I thought I had about a 1 in 3 shot of being called. I was the third name they called!! I couldn't believe it....why doesn't my luck ever run that way when they are giving away big prizes or something?!? We lined up and went into the courtroom. At this point, you had to turn all cell phones completely OFF.  We went in and all thirty of us sat on the front two rows of the audience section. Then they had the first 12 of us go sit in the jury box. As you went up to take your seat, you had to introduce yourself to the other jurors, the judge, the 4 attorneys, the plaintiff, the defendant, and any others that were in there.  You had to tell them your name, your occupation, your hobbies, your spouses occupation and hobbies, where you lived, and about your children.  All 30 of us had to do this. Then the plaintiff s attorney asked a bunch of general questions to the whole group and you had to raise your hand if you answered yes.. and then he would talk to you and ask you more questions.  Then the defendants attorney got his turn to ask questions.  The judge talked to us and instructed us on what to do.  We learned that this case was a civil case about an incident that occurred in a small town near here where the plaintiff (a 74 yr old lady who was very active and still working) was run over by her car because a local dealership (the defendant) had not repaired the defective part correctly.  I thought for sure I wouldn't be picked based on my answers to the questions.  We were able to go to lunch and I called Dale and told him I was pretty sure they wouldn't pick me since I told them that I had worked in a car dealership and that my husband had done work for this particular dealership.  I even told them that I had a problem with people getting large sums of money in lawsuits and was questioned about that!

After lunch, we came back in and sat outside the courtroom. They called individual people in and questioned them, but I wasn't called. So, I did get some reading done at this point.  Then they called us all in and we sat in the audience section again.  Then they told us when they called our name to come sit in the jury box.  I was the second name called!!  I was really shocked.  So, I was juror #2 for the rest of the week. The rest of the group was dismissed to go home for the day but our trial started right away. I was shocked at how quickly that happened. One minute I feel I will be dismissed and then 5 minutes later I am hearing opening remarks by the attorneys. 

Just some general observations:

• There were several exhibits with steering wheels and gear shift levers displayed in the courtroom that I figured would be used during the trial (and they were)
• The judge was very nice and a pleasure at all times.  He did his best to respect our time and would try to do things that he could without us. The last day he let us come in at 10 and one day we got out around 4. The other days we were there 9 to 5.  He usually gave us a long lunch and it was nice to sit out in the square and get some of that "reading" done in the beautiful sunshine.
• The judge had  a little button he could push that made "white noise" come over the intercom system so that the attorneys could come to his desk and they could discuss things that we couldn't hear.  This was  a huge timesaver so that we weren't continually going back and forth.
• The jury room which was the only place we could go was really small. I found out later that it was built for 6 jurors. There are no windows and the room is about as big as my bathroom at home, but there were times that there were 14 of us in there (12 jurors and 2 bailiffs). When we weren't in the coutroom, this is where we had to be. I think they locked the door or either a bailiff always stood out there. We were not allowed to leave this room for any reason. 
• I found out later that there hasn't been a 12 person jury in quite some time and apparently, we were the talk of the courthouse. 
• We were not allowed to use sympathy at all as a basis for our decision, but I really felt sorry for both parties.  The plaintiff was an old sweet lady who reminded me of my grandmothers. And the defendant (the owner)was young and looked just plain ole scared the whole week. I never saw him smile or even hint of having a smile. He was nervous as well.  I really think I would like both parties if I met them at a party or something.
• One thing that surprised me was that the audience section was empty. I guess the courtrooms that I have seen on TV all had people watching the trial. But there was no one there. Now, I understand that the people involved were witnesses and couldn't sit in on the trial until after their testimony.  But in general, no one "watched" the trial. 
• I did enjoy having lunch breaks. It has been so long since I had a lunch break where I got time to eat lunch, or walk, or read or make phone calls, or whatever I wanted to do during that hour!  But, it was very awkward to eat lunch with your fellow jurors because we couldn't discuss the case or anything about it. In essence, we really couldn't discuss the only thing we knew we had in common. And all of us were obviously thinking about the case and what we had heard so far. So, it made for some very awkward lunches. 
• The first day I went to a sandwich shop and one lady juror joined me. She had been to the Restoring Honor rally last weekend so we found some other topics to discuss.  The next day I went to the pizza parlor and joined 3 of the other jurors where we introduced ourselves and talked a little about our families and work and then ran out of things to say so we all sat there quietly with our own thoughts.  It was really awkward.  The third day we had a longer time so I just went to the square and relaxed for a while. Then I thought I would walk to Wendy's so I walked down away from the square and realized that it was father than I thought. It wouldn't have been too far but with the time I had left, it would have been pushing it.  So, I ended up having lunch by myself (which was fine with me!) at _____'s pot pies.  It was pretty yummy and I read the paper.
• The fourth day, the judge ordered the bailiffs to take us to lunch at Shillings as a group. I found out later that they normally do that while you are deliberating, but we were close enough that an exception was made.  We all figured out that that was to make sure that we didn't discuss the case,  but it was nice of the judge to buy us all lunch. 
• The one big struggle that I had this week was a charge from the judge that we couldn't talk about the case to ANYONE or do any kind of research on our own regarding the case or the people involved.  Both of those were VERY hard to do.  You walk away with so many thoughts and questions after each testimony and you really want to talk to someone about it all - but you can't! You are not allowed to even be in an elevator with anyone involved. One day I came out late and ran into the defendant and his attorney. They told me to take the elevator an they would get another one -judge's orders!!  And I am so accustomed to anytime I want or need information to just jump on the Internet and google it, and I can learn so much about people and places and accidents, etc.  It was very challenging to not look anything or anybody up. But I didn't do it--until after the trial was over.
• Jury duty is not hard work. But it is emotionally exhausting! 
• You get paid $25 a day for the days that you are at the courthouse, so I got paid $100 for my service.
• I really liked the judge -Judge David Darden. I think everyone really liked him. He seemed to be very fair and just but was also personable and helpful. After it was all over, he came into our little jury room and gave us our checks individually along with a certificate and a personal letter from him thanking us for our time.  He talked to us about the case and the things that went on behind the scenes that we didn't know about. He allowed us to ask him any questions regarding the court system or the trial. It was very enlightening.
• I really felt like we needed a decompression room to just talk about everything and talking to the judge and the attorneys really helped with that. 
• After the trial was over, and we talked to the judge for a while, we walked out and were shocked to see the attorneys on both sides waiting for us to ask us questions.  They could finally talk to us! So, they asked us how we came up with our decision and amounts. How we picked the jury foreman so fast (the judge told us we were the fastest jury ever to pick a foreman), etc,  Then we got to ask them some questions.  They were both very nice and were trying to learn from the experience as much as possible. But it was nice to see them as normal people and being nice to each other.  We even asked about the jury selection process and he laughed and said it is a "deselection" rather than a selection. Each attorney gets to pick 6 members.  I would have to guess that the defense would be the side that chose me. 
• Both attorneys were very different in their approaches and styles. Both did a good job, but the prosecution did a much better job than the defense.  He was way more organized and composed. They were both very compassionate. And the defense attorney was VERY worried that he might have made some jury members mad about one thing that happened (and he apologized publicly for) but was afraid that they may use that as a basis for their decision. He told us he didn't sleep a wink the night before worrying that he may have angered some jurors, and that was one question he had for us. But that really didn't play into our decision at all.
• After the trial was over, when hindsight is 20/20 the defense attorney said they should have just settled.  
• The prosecution was asking for a verdict of $1.2 million. They ended up getting $1.1 million with responsibility shared by the manufacturer of the vehicle, the dealership, and the owner.
• It really was just a lot of little things that could have prevented the accident from ever occurring.  Nothing was done with any intent of harm. 
• We deliberated for about 3-4 hours. We had to decide if the plaintiff was guilty or innocent. IF guilty, we had to come up with the money amount, and then we had to hash out the amount of responsibility each party had.  This really is a lot to decide. Everyone was in a hurry to get out of there so there were times that we compromised but we had to be unanimous in our decisions.
• We had 2 expert witnesses come in-one for each side.  The plaintiffs expert was a local guy that no one on the jury liked. He was paid $175 an hour for his work on this case.   The defendant's expert was from Arizona and flew out here 3 times for this case. He makes $475 an hour and has billed $90,000 on this case.  I was flabbergasted!!!! And we made $25 a DAY!!!  I decided that I need to become an expert on something so I can do that!! :)
• We had two doctors testify via videotape.  I thought this was a really good idea.  And the technology that was used in the courtroom was impressive.  One attorney used it more than the other and they have a lady in the courtroom just to handle the technical stuff. 
• We learned all about KTSI's and BTSI's this week and I know way more than I ever thought I would about interlocks and yes- I have tested mine now! :)
• I am really having trouble getting my mind off the case. It helped talking to everyone afterward, but I am still swirling all the information. I wondered how both parties felt last night.  I have thought about them all week.
• I did find out that the insurance company for the dealership will pay, so that makes me feel a little better. But this particular dealership has an awesome reputation and has only been taken to court one time over some chrome flaking off his wheels. And it was just one technician's mistake on one particular day. The service manager was responsible for checking his work and didn't do so correctly an the dealership is ultimately responsible for their actions.  But it could have happened anywhere at anytime. 
• The lady that was run over by her car broke her pelvis in 5 places and thought she was going to die.  We saw pictures of her in the nursing home but honestly, I was shocked that she wasn't hurt more than she was. It could have been so much worse!! And there was a 3 year old that knocked the car out of park. Thank God the 3 year old wasn't hurt!! 
• Both families are very active in their small city and the dealership apologized for the accident on the stand. 
• I pray that both parties can move forward with their lives now that this 3 year battle is over!!
• And I pray that I can move on now that my 4 days of jury duty is over!!!