My first experience serving on a civil jury

I had a “Come to Jesus” meeting on Dec. 4, 2017.

After over two decades of finding successful ways to get out of jury duty either by deferring it to future dates several times or looking over the list of excuses I can check off on the jury summons (I would have chosen the option I am not of sound mind but they want medical proof of that and I don’t have the money to see a psychiatrist), that all officially ended when I was chosen to serve on a civil jury at the George L. Allen, Sr. Courts Building in downtown Dallas.

I was among the first eighty people called at 9:30 a.m. after sitting in that jury room on the first floor with the other hundred people who got summoned to report to the seventh floor of Judge Craig Smith’s courtroom of the 192nd Judicial District Court. There 36 of us were called to be a part of “voir dire.” We were questioned by the lawyers of the plaintiff and the defendant as they decide who’d be the lucky twelve to serve in what was a medical case where the defendant, a woman, hit the plaintiff; a 17-year-old kid, the morning of Valentine’s Day in 2014 as she pulled into a 7-11 parking lot. The plaintiff was asking for over $5000 to be given to pay a chiropractor the kid had seen for several weeks following the accident, in addition, to asking for $10000 for the mental anguish the accident apparently caused both him and his parents.

The plaintiff’s lawyer didn’t personally ask me any questions like he did some of the others. Given that I figured I would not get picked. That is until the defendant’s lawyer asked us some more questions. He zeroed in on me, and the woman sitting beside me asking us if we check our monthly billing statement making sure the amount owed is correct. Who doesn’t check their monthly billing statement? Of course, we both said yes.

And that most likely is what got both of us picked for what was a jury of ten men and two women two hours later.

Sitting there as “Juror 6”, with pen and pad in my hand, taking notes as the lawyers for both the plaintiff and the defendant asked witnesses questions about what happened that day three years ago, I couldn’t help but notice “Juror 5” sitting beside me doing nothing but having his arms folded and legs crossed the whole time, like as though he had already made up his mind about the case. I was not at all surprised when we deliberated hours later where he told us how he works for a company that shells out award settlements in medical lawsuits such as the case we had just heard and the reason why his company settles is to avoid going to court as the fees to fighting the case are likely to cost more than the settlement amount offered.

Juror 5’s comment to everyone in the deliberation room is when he first heard what the case was going to be about, he said to us, “Why in the hell are we even here in the first place?”

None of us in the deliberation room introduced ourselves. Then again, no one asked. We were all known to each other as “Juror 1”, “Juror 7”, “Juror 10”, etc. That doesn’t mean, however, that each juror didn’t have a trait that stuck out from the rest.

Juror 5 was the most colorful. Since only ten of us had to make a unanimous decision on how the plaintiff should be awarded, he then told all of us he was voting no across the board and told us all to decide and proceeded to work on his laptop.

Which brings me to another juror whose trait was that we all follow the rules when deliberating a case. That juror proceeded to tell Juror 5 how according to the video we watched on the first floor discussing the dos and don’ts of being a juror, we were not supposed to be using our laptops and cellphones when deliberating. Just when I thought there was going to be an entertaining pissing contest between the two, Juror 5 put his laptop away.

Then there’s the juror, an African American, who said he was willing to vote however way everyone else voted just so we can all go home by 6 p.m. as he had other things to do. And the juror who wished a better diagram of the 7-11 parking lot was given for us all to see in order to make a better decision on a monetary judgment.

As to my thoughts on the case, was the woman driver negligent when she hit the kid? Yes. Just because it was 7:30 a.m. that morning and the sun was in her eyes wasn’t a good enough excuse as to why she accidentally hit the boy. Did she use the visor to keep the sun out of her eyes as she pulled into the parking lot? And define “low speed” which the police officer who filed the accident report, said she was doing when the incident occurred. When I sneeze, I personally stop the car when I am driving on a residential street and slow down when I’m on the interstate.

It took less than ninety minutes for us to come to a decision and only award that $5000 be given to the plaintiff to pay for the chiropractor bill.

When it was over, my attitude changed about being picked on a jury. As the judge told us in the waiting room that morning, we are one of the few countries in the world where citizens are picked to serve on a jury, be it criminal or civil trials. Like voting, serving on a jury is one of the freedoms we have in this country and should be taken seriously.

“There is no better way to ensure that citizens receive a fair trial in our courts than to have other citizens without a vested interest in the dispute participate in the process,” Judge Smith wrote in a thank you letter I received from him a week later. “Maintenance of your rights to a trial by jury, due process and trials based on fairness and the rule of law, is worth working for.”

The next time I get summoned to serve on a jury, be it a civil or criminal case, I might not be so quick to postpone the date. I might actually “want” to show up that day in hopes of being chosen. Getting that $6 check for serving on a jury has nothing to do with it since that check doesn’t even cover a supersized Big Mac meal at the McDonald's down the street near the courthouse.

What serving on a jury does, for me anyway, is it beats going to work. I suspect a majority of people would prefer to be at work instead which may be why so many either opt out or postpone their summon dates.

Such is not the case with me these days, but you didn’t hear that from me.

©12/6/17