Jury Duty

Imagine my surprise a few weeks ago to receive a jury summons in the mail! What? Really? Fresh in my memory was the experience of a New Jersey-based journalist of my (virtual) acquaintance who was summoned in the very early days of quarantine. He tweeted photos of the crowded conditions - and remember this is before we knew to mask. The very next day, as I recall, his location suspended jury trials.

It turns out my county decided to resume jury trials in October. They probably made that decision before all the county-level indicators started ticking up later in the fall. At any rate, they are pressing on, though slowly and cautiously.  Is it cautiously enough? 

I believe firmly that trial by jury is part of what makes America great. I've been called to jury duty half a dozen times, and actually served three times back when I lived in Chicago. The mere fact that I show up without an attitude to get out of it probably has a lot to do with my history of getting seated. Frankly, I've never understood that attitude. Why do people hate jury duty? Back when I was working, it was a welcome and unimpeachable excuse to have a break in the routine. I have an admittedly high tolerance for waiting around - back in the day, I'd bring a stack of magazines and jettison as I went. Now, of course, the phone or ipad work great. And, when involved in a trial, people's stories are interesting. The glimpse into other lives can be fascinating. I read mysteries and love me a TV courtroom drama, so to get to be there is cool. And, of course, I have a pretty strong sense of civic responsibility, and this shows some of our finest (and not so fine) systems at work.

So I faithfully showed up as summoned on Tuesday morning last week. I'd been summoned once before to that location, so I had the logistics of parking and finding the building all worked out. But clothes! What does one wear to be on a jury? And, setting the alarm, to be up and out on a schedule. I set three alarms, just to be certain. I decided what to wear the night before (a time saving trick from my working days) but ended up changing my tops three times. I went for comfort over style, choosing my dressiest yoga pants (an oxymoron?) and a relatively dressy fleece sweater over a plain tee. I left my beloved hoodie and flannel shirts behind.

The summons included the instruction for full time masking, and I brought a few with me, to be able to swap out if I was there all day. The entrance to the court building was next to another county building with a polling place, and there was a line there. But I found my way into the court building, where they took my temperature and ran through a quick verbal checklist ("have you recently travelled out of state? been to any non-socially distanced parties? ...") before screening me through security. In the huge juror's lounge, they checked me in without touching me, having me toss the pen I used to sign their sheet into a box lined with disinfectant wipes. They handed me an envelope with fifteen dollars in cash and a letter suitable for showing an employer, testifying to my appearance. 

The huge juror lounge had specific seats marked off for sitting. At checkin, they handed me a full sheet of paper holding only my new number, 19. They pointed in the general direction of the seats, and I found the seat with a large #19 on its back. It turns out, each row of a dozen fixed seats were set to hold two people, and the position along the row was staggered so no-one was directly in front of anyone else. So I settled in to my seat and started on my electronic magazines. 

After a while, someone at the front of the room attracted our attention, and started to call numbers. Each person had to hold up their number when called to be recorded. They ended up calling about 45 people, half the jury pool there, and then lined them up and took them to a courtroom for voir dire. They were asked to walk six feet apart, and the elevators had designated spots to stand in, only four at a time, so I imagine their trip took a while to get there and get settled. 

I figured by this time I'd spent about 90 minutes in a room with about 100 people total in it. The only public buildings I've been in since March are supermarkets and hardware stores, usually off peak and with very high ceilings and good ventilation. In the jury room we were well spaced out, and 100 percent masked. A casual survey of masks showed more than two-thirds in disposable paper masks (mostly the pleated surgical kind, a few N95 types), and others in cloth masks. But, we don't much about about how the virus spreads. How good, what type, of ventilation system did the room and building have? I have no idea.

So then for us, the other half of the jury pool, they brought the lawyers and judge to us for voir dire. They asked a series of questions about our past history and whether we knew specific people. If our answer to anything was "yes", we held up our number cards and they recorded us for individual questions later. It became clear from the nature of the questions that the case was a civil lawsuit stemming from an auto accident. Of course it was.

So then, they called us in one-by-one to a smaller room just off the big one, where the judge asked for the details on the questions we had flagged. After my questioning, I returned to my seat and my magazines. 

Finally, the big denouement. The clerk started to call numbers, and the big question in everybody's mind: Are we selected or excused? As it turns out, I was selected. Of course I was.  

By now, three hours had passed. The others left (I was glad to have fewer people around) and it was our turn, the eight of us, to line up and go by fours up to the court room. Then, more waiting around. At some point, we'd been told to turn off our devices, and I cursed myself for not having thought to bring an actual book book or magazine. It appeared our trial was the only activity on the entire floor, and I was relieved to have even fewer people around. There was a long corridor with floor to ceiling windows and it was great to get to walk back and forth and see some actual daylight. One juror went in to talk to the judge alone, and then we were seven jurors, six women and one man. 

Finally, into the courtroom. The jury box, built to hold fourteen, had seats blocked off for three to sit in each of two rows. Very comfortable fixed but swiveling seats, with a waist-high wooden wall in front and clear plastic sheets suspended between the rows. One poor juror had to sit in front of the jury box, on the courtroom floor, where she felt like she was on display. She had to sit nicely (we could put our feet up on the wall in front of us) and she felt the need to be alert and taking notes all the time. So now, in our courtroom, there were the seven jurors, and about ten others (plus some witnesses).

The judge thanked us constantly for being there, and revealed this was his first jury trial since March. He explained things clearly, interpreting some of the lawyers' motions for us along the way. He's not on the ballot this year, but I'd vote for him again. His clerk had recently taken the bar, remotely, and noted there might be less reciprocity than in previous years because it was a truncated exam.

So the case itself was a rear-end collision, three years ago, and the plaintiffs were suing the driver that hit them for whiplash. We heard testimony from doctors and chiropractors, the plaintiffs and defendant. It seemed to me none of the lawyers were any good - but maybe I watch too much TV. Certainly, two of them failed to read the room - with a jury of six women and one man, do you really need to emphasize the boxing league credentials of one doctor, or pepper your speech with a flood of football analogies? 

I used my car as my portable bubble, and ate my lunch there every day. Two of three days I also walked, but the last day the remnants of a hurricane swept through so I just read in the car. With temperatures in the 60s every day, the car was nice secure little space to be unmasked.

After two-and-a-half days of testimony (and a lot of waiting around in the hallway) on the afternoon of the third day we went to the jury room to deliberate. (Just before that, the poor woman who sat in front was designated the alternate that could be released - we only needed six for the decision.) It was really interesting to hear what others were thinking. We had of course started to warm up to each other during our interminable waits, what do you do, where do you live, etc., but of course hadn't started to talk about the trial. Some thought the plaintiffs were totally faking, others had more sympathy for the fact their lives had been upended when a car struck them out of the blue. We took about 90 minutes, and ended up splitting the baby. We didn't give the plaintiffs everything they asked for, but we gave them something. And we all agreed on which was the sleaziest doctor!

So now, I've imposed a (modified) quarantine on myself. I never felt the situation was clearly unsafe, but it also was clearly much riskier in terms of virus exposure than my normal life. My sailing partner and I discussed it, and we agreed to wear masks all the time we were together yesterday, even though all summer we didn't mask up on the boat. (As it turns out, it was cold and so the mask was not unwelcome.) I double-masked at the grocery store this morning, and will mask when I see my girl for her birthday tomorrow. I'm postponing some errands, banking, etc.. I figure after a week or maybe ten days, I should go for a test. When I get the results, then I'll declare myself clear.

The frustrating thing is I keep having to postpone my hair appointment, to get new color! I figure I shouldn't put them at risk, even through a mask, until I'm clear.

(I voted, I'm ignoring the fact life as we know it may change in a couple of days.)