Serving on a jury…

I know many jurors have written books about some of their experiences in the most famous trials in recent memory.  Sadly, my recent experience with jury duty is only good enough to be worthy of a blog.

I was called for jury duty for the fourth time in 10 years earlier this month.  Three times, I have been called to serve as a petit juror in Anne Arundel District Court.  A fourth time I was called for Jury Duty at the U.S. Federal District Court in Baltimore—on my birthday.  It amazes me how Court continues to find me to serve when there are millions of people who have never even been called in their lives.

And this time, I was asked to serve as a juror in a trial.  Oh, joy!

As it turned out, it wasn’t too bad.  It was a four-day civil trial with a 6-person jury and 2 alternates focused on monetary damages from an auto accident that occurred on New Years’ Eve 2011.  And somehow yours truly passed the mustard to serve as a juror.

Did I mention that my father worked in Auto claims adjustment for most of his work life, and I frequently heard about work when he came home from dinner?  Maybe the prosecution or defense would have found grounds to excuse me had they known that.  But they never asked that question during the selection process.  Luckily for them, it didn’t matter.  But I did make it a point to mention that fact to the judge after the trial.

The bottom line is that it was a classic situation.  An all-white jury judging a case in which the Plaintiffs and Prosecution were old and white, and the defendant and his attorney were younger and African-American.  And yes, the Defense Attorney did make an issue of that to the judge to no avail.

In the end, the case was a comedy of errors by both sides.  The Prosecutor almost put us to sleep, while one of the Defense Witnesses almost got thrown in jail by the Judge.  The highlight was when the Prosecution brought in an Incomplete Google Map of the Accident Scene, and the Defense wisely tried to use the map to confuse the Plaintiff.  But 4 of the 6 jurors (including myself) saw the error in the map (FYI:  we polled the jurors during deliberations, so that’s how I know 4 of the 6 jurors thought the map was incomplete), and the Judge called both attorneys to the bench and chewed them out over it.

We ended up deliberating for 4 hours.  There was no question in our minds that the defendant had caused the accident (it was a rear-ending BTW), and the biggest issue was the awarding of damages.  We decided NOT to give the prosecution the full amount they asked for (partly because the prosecution’s case was flawed), but the medical bills were paid for and some compensation for future medical bills was given.

I hope this is the last time I am called to serve as a juror for a LONG time.  And I hope I am never called to serve on a grand jury.  I can only imagine what the jury in the George Zimmerman trial is going through right now.  At least I got to go home at night.