Jury Duty

So, quite a few people already know that I had jury duty last week. I had to report on Monday morning for jury selection and as luck would have it, out of 43 people there, I was one of the lucky 12 selected for jury service. In fact, I was juror number one. One of the hardest things was figuring out what to do with the kids while I was at jury duty, but other than that it was really a positive experience for me.
Until about 9th grade, I wanted to be a lawyer so the legal aspects of the trial were very intriguing to me. We reported at either 8:30 or 9:00 each morning and were done by 1:30pm, except for the last day. They had donuts for us in the morning, and fed us lunch at our afternoon break. It was pretty good food too.
The case wasn't necessarily high profile, because none of us on the jury had ever heard anything about it, but after my jury service was over I looked up several articles about the case. There was even a small article published in Sunday's newspaper about the verdict. Based on some very inflammatory and "what was this jury thinking" comments on some of the online articles I decided not to post many details on this blog. I still think we did the right thing as the jury but I hesitate to identify myself as one of the jurors in this case in any online forum. But if anyone wants to ask me about it, I'll be happy to tell you all about it. Now that it's over and I'm allowed to talk about it, that is.
The trial lasted five days so on Friday we began our deliberations at about 12:30pm. We didn't leave the courthouse until 8:00pm. It was really that complicated. We had to decide how to rule on three different points of law, and then decide how much, if any damages to award. And if we awarded damages we were supposed to break that down into compensatory and punitive damages. As I said before, all the legal stuff was actually very intriguing to me. I got a secret thrill in the courtroom whenever a lawyer would stand up and say, "I object!" Plus it was at the federal courthouse downtown so the courtroom was all fancy with a wooden jury box and witness stand, just like on TV!
I wouldn't say I want to do it again, because it was hard to work out the childcare sometimes, and there were things shown to us at the trial that I never wanted to see in my life. But having been on this jury now gets me out of having to do any type of jury service for the next two years. Overall it was a positive experience, and if you want more details, just ask me. I haven't been able to get it off my mind all week and I'm sure my husband would like me to talk to someone else about it for a change. ;)