In February and March of this year, I was selected as Juror #2 of a civil trial in the Sacramento County Court.
First Rule of Jury Duty: Don't talk about jury duty!
Second Rule of Jury Duty: Get used to waiting in the hallway.
Third Rule of Jury Duty: Everything takes 2 or 3 times as long as advertised.
The trial that I was on was somewhat interesting as it was a wrongful termination suit which had the "big mean mega-company" wrongfully terminating the "dedicated overworked employee." I was actually surprised that I was selected to be on the jury since I myself work for a mega-company and am an engineer, both things which I would assume would be good for the defense. Nonetheless, after 3 days of jury selection (was supposed to take 1 day), we had a jury of 12 jurors and 2 alternates.
The trial was to take two to three weeks as advertised by the judge. Six weeks later we were finally entering deliberations. Our jury was already quite a bit perturbed by the drawn-out proceedings. As we started at each other across the deliberation room, our first task was to choose/select/bully someone into taking on the role of the jury foreperson. There were people from all walks of life on this jury, but certainly I was one of the youngest. But, in the end, since nobody wanted to be the jury foreman, I decided to volunteer.
It was an interesting experience; as we began discussing the facts of the trial it was clear that there were two or three camps that existed and quite a handful of versions of who was credible. I thought it was fairly cut and dry but as foreperson had to find a way for us to come to a group consensus - we needed a majority on many different qualifying statements before we could give our final verdict. Our deliberations took up nearly 4 days as we tediously went through the mountains of documents and weeks of trial proceedings. In the end, we came to a consensus and awarded a small amount of damages to the plaintiff.
It was an interesting experience and something I would do again. Hopefully not another 6 week trial though; luckily my employer was very supportive. I became familiar with the downtown Sacramento lunch spots with my trusty juror sidekick, Josh. We both liked Cafe Soleil, La Bonne, Munteans, Sampinos, and Cafe Rolle. Delicious food was a great distraction from the mainly bland trial proceedings. I should have been keeping a jury duty food journal because it was much more interesting than anything happening at the courthouse. Next time.
Justice was served.
