Tale from the Cridds: June 2009

Everyday this past week for me included a lengthy visit to the King County Superior Court Regional Justice Center in Kent, WA. Instead of daily solving software design problems, I was to sort out an escalated insurance claim dispute. I showed up for jury duty Monday morning and by that afternoon the case had started.

Queue to the “oh, what a drag, I hate jury duty sorry you had to go through it” comments. Also, queue to the “let’s rejoice for our wondrous blessing of living in a country where we can be selected to serve in the judiciary system” comments. Maybe neither of these professors has ever served on a jury.

Allow me to share my own comments and observations. (Now that the trial is over I can say anything I want)

Over a year ago I performed jury duty by sitting in a waiting room for two days doing nothing of importance (and yes, that was quite a drag). This time, almost everybody was chosen for a jury panel for a trial. My group had 32 potential jurors of which 13 must be selected and the rest excused back to the waiting room. The judge introduces the plaintiffs/defendants and then starts a discussion/QnA session with all the potential jurors, with the intent to locate those who would not be fair and impartial.

I thought I would be excused because I serve on the Home owners’ board and we are in the middle of lawsuit against two insurance companies. The judge and attorneys questioned me about this and determined that I could still be objective. I was disappointed in one potential juror who was very obviously trying to get the boot by spouting off a bunch of vitriolic nonsense and empty progressive rants about individuals versus large companies. What an embarrassment of a citizen, I thought, as the airhead strutted out of the court with her nose in a fashion rag.

With the 13 selected, the trial begins. Witnesses are brought forth and questioned. The cross-examinations are particularly interesting and at times intense. It may be preferable to be a juror with the burden of deciding someone’s fate than to be on the witness seat with sharp attorneys drilling you, throwing out objections, with the judge’s careful eye scrutinizing everything. I would say though that the whole thing went very professionally.

Deliberations took about 4 hours, spanned across two days. I really wanted to take all the evidence and facts presented and construct an undeniable logical proof for the best verdict, but the truth is that you as a juror do not have all the information necessary. Instead, you have to put it all together with imperfect information – and that can be tough for a numbers and logic guy like me who needs all the data. When witness testimony directly contradicts another witness, you have to decide which to believe. I was worried that jury deliberations might be scattered, illogical, and ineffective, however, I was glad to be proven wrong. All the fellow jurors were well-spoken, objective, insightful, and respectable despite the fact that there were some great arguments and debate going on. It was a pleasure reasoning with my fellows to reach a verdict we felt was right.

I will help my country by periodically serving as the most objective, fair, and impartial juror I can be. How about you?

I've spent the morning uploading pictures to facebook, but know that not all of you have an account, so here is a sample of what is there that's not here already in backwards chronilogical order