Jury Duty, and what came of it...

[Glitch Girl]

Hey guys.  I think I mentioned in a previous post that I had jury duty coming up and...

Well, one of my friends said they hoped I had an "interesting" time. 

Oh boy...

To begin, this is not the first time I've been called. The first time was basically four days of a lot of reading, getting called and struck from juries twice.  It was long and dull, but at least I got Friday off. 

This was also before I moved.  Take note of that.

So... on Monday I get up, get ready, allow myself plenty of time to deal with traffic and rain, and head down to the courthouse I went to last time.  Traffic isn't great, but I arrive with 20 minutes to spare, and start trying to find the lot I'm supposed to park in.  I look at my jury summons card, and something is wrong.

The street numbers don't match up.  In fact they're way off.  And then I realize why.

Remember how I said I moved?  Where I live is sort of an area in flux, I'm kinda sorta part of one city, and kinda sorta part of another.

In short, I'm at the wrong courthouse.

Crud.

I call the number on the card but can only get an answering machine so I leave a message, type in the directions in my phone's GPS and head off! The GPS takes me on a bunch of back roads into areas I've never been, but manages to shave a lot of time off my trip (good thing too, because the juror lot is now full so I end up parking across the street in front of a closed business), so I only arrive 20 minutes late, yet MIRACULOUSLY I'm still in time for role call.  WHEW!

At this point the parking problem is addressed - yes there aren't enough spaces, but there's a park with plenty of parking, and we have 20 minutes to move our cars if need be.  Since my spot is a bit iffy, I head back to my car...

And there's a tow truck there.

Crud.  Again.

Luckily, it turns out that they aren't there for my car, they're repossessing some SUV that's parked a few feet away.  Highly relieved, I get in my car, find a nice spot (the park is quite pleasant), and head back to the court house.  As if to reflect my mood, the skies are clearing up and the sun is out and it's rapidly turning into a beautiful day.

Probably because I was late, I get put in the third jury pool. We report to the court room at 9:00 tomorrow, which means that nice day I mentioned, I TOTALLY GET TO ENJOY IT!  I am out of there a little before noon and spend part of the day sitting in the sun in my backyard reading and enjoying the sspringlike weather.

Tuesday...
The gloom is back, but it's not terrible.  The drive is less than 20 minutes (now that I'm going to the right place), and I get there early, just to be sure. It takes a bit before they usher us up to the courtroom and send us in to sit.  All we know about the case is that's it's a defamation of character suit.  All 34 of us introduce ourselves, and then it's time for the lawyers to ask questions.

The Plaintiff's lawyer picks a few people to ask specific questions of, which is a bit odd, since all my previous experience has been with the lawyers asking very general questions.  The other lawyer... well, he was kind of a cross between Matlock and Colombo - southern, personable, slightly disheveled, but pretty knowledgeable in legal matters.  After introducing himself to us, admitting he's not a glamorous lawyer like we see on TV, he asks the general questions as expected.  The law teams deliberate for a bit, decide who to get rid of and make their cuts using numerical references to us so no one knows who's been axed.  When they're done, those of us who were sitting in the jury box file out to the main courtroom as they call the final jury.  I barely sit down when -guess what?- I get called to the jury box. 

Guess I won't be getting caught up on my reading after all.

The new jury eventually gets settled, and the lawyers begin their opening remarks and we find out what the case is about.

Ho-boy...

(NOTE: Even though the case is over and I can talk about it, I will be changing all the names just to be on the safe side.)

Bob is suing Jack, the father of his ex-wife Marsha, and Sam, a private detective, for invasion of privacy, defamation of character by making allegations to a psychologist that (Bob) collected Child Pornography and leaking said allegations to others.

Um....  Well at least it's not the double murder trial down the hall?

(BTW: The pornographic material was never entered into evidence, so none of us had to look at it (for the record it was apparently only 5-7 images that were of  questionable age out of 17,000 images found on the computer drives by the "Porn Stick" (yes that's what it's called - it's some plug-n-play device the detective used that finds this kind of thing and extracts it from drives.))

I won't go into details but this trial revealed or included...

• an ugly divorce (which spawned this whole mess)
  
• an affair
  
• alleged alcoholism
  
• alleged child abuse
  
• terminal illness, twice
  
• secretly videoed conversations
  
• a disbarred lawyer
  
• a mistress on the witness stand
  
• possible computer hacking for financial information
  
• an emotional breakdown on the witness stand
  
• and another affair  (alleged)

And believe it or not, MOST of that had little do to with the actual CASE.  We, the jury, were getting a might bit confused as to what the heck the Plaintiff was trying to prove more than once.  Bob's lawyer was, in many ways, his second worst enemy (his worst being himself, but more about that later). 

The recorded conversation I mentioned?  It was a long conversation between a psychologist, Bob's ex wife Marsha, Sam the detective, and another lawyer.  Marsha doesn't want Bob around the kids, thinks he might abuse them, then the psychologist and Sam talk in private about his findings.  This takes 45 minutes to sit through, and it's not helped by the fact that the first 20 minutes of it are a close up on someone's leg, followed by a long period of the room sideways, briefly we see someone talking (the doctor), then back to the sideways room.  One of the jurors nodded off, and even the judge looked like she was drifting at one point.  I still have no idea why the Plaintiff entered it into evidence.

That was the problem with Bob's lawyer - he never really seemed to get to a point.  He'd call people, but I swear, they did more harm to their case than good.  And he talked really quietly.  The judge asked him to speak up more than once, but it never did much good until she told him to use the podium and put a mic on it.   Also of note: he kept asking Sam about the disk of porn found on the computers Marsha gave him to check, which he did not have (he only made 1 copy) and which had been used as evidence in the divorce hearing so only the attorneys involved in the case had access.  Towards the end of the trial, someone pointed out that Bob's lawyer was his divorce lawyer and was part of said hearing and should have access to this disk he keeps asking about.  D'oh!

Then there was "Sasha", initially introduced as Bob's "Friend", and who had an affair with him while he was married.  Sasha testified on the first day, and it was hard to figure out why the Plaintiff called her as a witness.  As things progressed, it became clear that if Bob should be suing anyone, it should be Sasha, since it seem like everyone who wasn't supposed to hear about something got the information from her. 

And finally, Bob took the stand.  Bob is obviously still very angry about his divorce.  Bob made this apparent with most of the answers he gave on the stand, despite denying the fact, saying he was merely disappointed.  When questioned, Bob admitted most of the bad stuff he heard about himself came from Sasha.  Bob then started slipping in accusations about Marsha's father, which meant he was doing EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS SUING THE GUY FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE!

[facepalm]

My favorite line...
Defense: You had an affair.
Bob: Yes... but I went to confession!

(dude, you kind of have to be sorry for that to work)

The Plaintiff final rested and we're all shuttled off to the Jury room while they discuss things before the trial can continue.  We sit and chat (it was a really nice bunch of people) and wait and wait and wait and finally we all get really bored and manage to procure some dry erase markers so we can play Hangman.  This keeps us entertained for a while until the judge comes in (the word on the board was "Dr Zhivago") to talk to us about the case.

Seems that that long wait was because the attorneys have decided to settle so we don't have to make a ruling.  She asks us what we thought of the case, did we have any questions.  So far we'd all been very careful to avoid talking about the case at lunch and so forth (it was hard, and a few general things tended to slip into conversation) so it was nice to vent.  Pretty much everyone agreed that Sasha should have been the one sued, since she seemed to be the root of most of it, and that Bob's lawyer talked too softly and that he really didn't present a very good case (whereas the Defense tended to get straight to the point and drag things back on track as well). 

And then we were free to go.

As I was leaving, I noticed the easel in the courtroom had a large pad on it with new writing.  I couldn't read most of it at a distance, but I could make out the bottom line which was in a different color.  It said in summation thanks to this lawsuit ,Bob had managed to defame himself...

They say on Leap Day you should do something you never did before, and I think this counts.  I now have my memories, and about 11 pages of handwritten notes that I took because I thought I might actually need them.  Silly me. 

[BlueBard]

Save those notes.  Change all the names and it sounds like you've got an outline for a really good plot for a soap opera or, twisted appropriately, a comedy.

[stumpy]

Yikes. Some people really aren't smart enough to keep themselves out of trouble. At least you had an interesting day out of it, initial hassles aside.

Regarding the notes: I have heard that some judges (maybe some jurisdictions) don't allow jurors to take their own notes during testimony. Was this case a civil tort (as I was kind of assuming) or a criminal case? Since that juror restriction always struck me as a particularly stupid and arrogant bit of courtroom nannying, I am glad to see it isn't always the case.

[Podmark]

Very interesting story Glitch. Thanks for sharing.

[MJB]

Regardless of the circumstances I want to thank you for serving Jury Duty. Legal obligation or not it is appreciated.

[Glitch Girl]

Regarding the notes: I have heard that some judges (maybe some jurisdictions) don't allow jurors to take their own notes during testimony. Was this case a civil tort (as I was kind of assuming) or a criminal case? Since that juror restriction always struck me as a particularly stupid and arrogant bit of courtroom nannying, I am glad to see it isn't always the case.

It was a civil case, and the question of notes was actually addressed at the start - we were allowed, though it was recommended to take only minimal and brief notes.  I probably went overboard, but at a certain point, I was taking notes in order to try to piece together what exactly lead up to this case mostly for my own amusement.

[BentonGrey]

Haha, wow, what an interesting and bizarre experience GG!  Thanks for sharing this with us, and, as MJB said, for doing your civic duty!

[The Phantom Eyebrow]

Heh, nice story GG.  I like the notion of this Matlock / Columbo hybrid giving it the whole "Now I'm not one of your Big City lawyers..." shtick.

[DireWolf]

Wow, wayyyyyy more interesting then anything I've been invloved in (and I am not complaining, mind you, just observing...)

[Tommy Troy]

Glitch, that sounds awful.  Your experience was really typical - angry people who have done stupid things represented by nincompoop lawyers who take the thing all the way to trial (to jack up the fees) and settle before it goes to the jury.  I have worked with this stuff for the last twenty-five years and, seriously, sometimes you feel like you have to take a bath when you're done with it.

I expect to be around here more now that I've discovered that FR has its very own DCUO PC League, and it's good to be back.  I'm looking forward to learning more of your art secrets! 

TT