Jury Duty

Last Monday, I got selected as a juror for jury duty at the Civil courthouse on McAllister. Here is my recollection of these couple of days. Waited around for 1/2 hour and then got assigned to a courtroom by 9:30am. Out of the group of 60, they picked 28 for questioning. I was chosen as #24. After all the questioning and people getting struck out (excused) by the lawyers, I ended up as Juror #4. I don’t know why I am so lucky when it comes to these things! By the afternoon, the 12 jurors and 2 alternates got sworn in to serve.

This may be the SHORTEST trial that the court ever had. 1-1/2 day!!! There were only 2 witnesses, the plaintiff and the defendant. The case is about an ex-employee (plaintiff) suing the ex-supervisor (defendant) for assault and battery. The events happened between April 2003-May 2005. The plaintiff accused the supervisor of using her hips to bump her (the supervisor is pretty fat), pinning her to the desk, holding a fist against her face and of course verbally abusing her. All these events have no witnesses. The plaintiff did most of the talking, recounting the events. She was too dramatic - she tried to re-enact all the scenes; fake-crying on a couple of occasions .

The defendant looked mean. She didn’t seem nice; and she admitted that she would raise her voice to get things and exercise authority. She didn’t recount her recollection of the events ; she said she doesn’t recall any of them. The jury deliberated for about 1 hour. IMHO, I thought the plaintiff exaggerated the physical violence she claimed had happened (the hip bumps, the pinning) - so not guilty on the Battery charge. The other 11 people concurred. But on the Assault charge - which is defined as the “intent” to cause harm, I voted guilty on that. I believed that she did put out her fist. But unfortunately, I was overruled. 9 other people didn’t agree with me, so the non-guilty verdict passed. Many people had a problem with the fact that there were no witnesses subpeonaed to testify. In Civil cases, only 9 people need to agree vs. in criminal cases, it has to be an unanimous vote (12 out of 12 have to agree). So the case was done… in 1-1/2 days! I wonder why this would fall in the Civil court if it is an assault/battery case? Well, the answer is that the plaintiff is seeking monetary damages and do not necessarily want the defendant to go to jail. So it was kinda weird…

Every once in a while, I don’t mind serving as a juror. It’s only when I get super busy at work that makes it stressful for me to sit through a trial & then go back home to do regular work. But this was just fine.