Man's Take Magazine

Jury Duty: Working Man’s Nightmare

I consider myself an upstanding citizen with a strong patriotic streak. I believe that in the United States our justice system is solid. It’s certainly not without flaws, but generally it works. Let’s face it… for all its warts, it’s a vast improvement over many other countries.

Even so I still get a little flutter in my stomach when I receive mail from the county court. Please, not another speeding ticket!
Worse… You are hereby summoned to appear for Petit Jury Duty. Noooooooooo!

I’ve never been an eager participant in our justice system, but I recognize my obligations as a citizen and am willing to step up and do what must be done. I’m a fair and impartial judge with vast worldly experience and a sound education. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m the perfect juror for many cases.

Recently I was unfortunate enough to have the court agree with that sentiment as I was selected to sit on a civil jury in a medical malpractice trial. I’m not going to give any details of the case (though it has since concluded and is a matter of public record), but I will tell you that it was a wrongful death case against a surgeon.

As an upstanding citizen I have an aversion to outright lies. Last I checked in a court room they call it perjury and it carries a penalty of jail time. However, this particular case taught me a vital lesson. When it comes to getting out of jury duty… Lie. Skirt the truth carefully so there’s no way to be caught, but deceive nevertheless. I had one opportunity (and only one) to cite past experiences that would express my strong bias against one side of this case, but I failed to do so. Why? Because I really didn’t have enough detail to establish a bias… and I didn’t want to be dishonest. I foolishly thought I wouldn’t get picked.

I work as an independent consultant and only get paid by the hour. So my streak of honesty cost me an entire week of work. Instead of my normal hourly rate for a full week, I got $15 per day, plus validation of my parking ticket. Go me! It was just barely enough to cover lunch each day.

Is this but a small price to pay in the interests of justice? Perhaps. But here an innocent bystander got sucked into a trivial legal debate between attorneys and physicians. The meat of this case was about whether or not this doctor violated the standard of care. Well I’m not a doctor, so how should I know? I have to rely on the testimony of the witnesses. Most of them were highly prestigious doctors themselves.

This is how it’s supposed to work. I’m supposed to either be clueless as to the background (and informed solely by the attorneys and witnesses) or I’m supposed to put aside any previous biases I might have (which should have been discovered during selection). This seems a little silly to me. A group of this doctor’s professional peers (other surgeons) could have decided this case in less than an hour, but instead I got to waste a whole week on it.

In this particular instance there was no substance to the claims that the doctor was negligent. It was a matter of an attorney using hindsight to say that the surgeon did not provide a drug that could have saved the patient’s life. It was well established that most surgeons would not have prescribed this drug. To me this was a highly frivolous law suit. It was a waste of my time, the accused surgeon’s time, and the court’s time. The court could have been presiding over important criminal matters, but instead was listening to a bunch of attorneys argue over medical terminology they hardly comprehend.

It was sad that this particular patient died, but it is an established risk that goes along with surgery. In my mind, the mere death of the patient does not give the family or their attorney the right to kidnap myself and eight other ordinary citizens for an entire week, taking us away from our jobs and personal lives. Our judge was very fair, polite, and tried to be as accommodating as the law allows. For that I was appreciative, but still the whole thing left a sour taste in my mouth.

I feel used. I was also bored to tears because the plaintiffs didn’t have a strong case, so the decision was simple. If I were a federal employee or worked for a big company that would pay me for my time as a juror I wouldn’t have minded. But in my situation, I truly contemplated not showing up. A night in jail and a small fine would have been more acceptable than wasting a week of my time and preventing me from earning money that week.

The good news is I’m safe from jury duty for three more years in my jurisdiction. I also learned a valuable lesson… Once you’re in the courtroom, you won’t get a chance to offer excuses or complaints. You need to find a way to show your strong bias based on one of the structured questions they ask the prospective jurors. Creative skills can be immensely valuable here.

Disclaimer: You should never lie in a court of law or attempt to deceive a judge. You may end up in jail. However, jail may be preferable to being a juror for certain cases. Once you are officially a criminal you probably will no longer be qualified for future jury duty!

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