I posted this in c/Canada, but I thought I would share it here to. What have your experiences with jury duty been like?
Note about what “First Person” columns are:
First Person columns are personal stories and experiences of Canadians, in their own words. This is intended to showcase a more intimate storytelling perspective, and allow people from across the country to share what they have lived through.
A good piece will spur conversation. It could be a slice of life or a transformative moment that changed your life. Perhaps your personal story will inform how the reader thinks about the world.
Intro:
I knew I was a goner as soon as the sheriff walked into the room. He looked like everyone’s genial Uncle Bob except for the police vest and the walkie-talkie that hung from his belt.
“Juror 322, gather your things. We have to go see the judge,” he said.
A young blond woman picked up her bag and followed Bob out the door.
I knew that exchange meant she wouldn’t be back. And, as the alternate juror for a 12-member jury, I would take her place.
I have never met anyone who wanted to be on a jury. I certainly didn’t.
However, over the course of a three-week trial, we evolved from a gaggle of annoyed people crabbing about how this was going to take time away from watching The Pitt or on the pickleball court to a group that worked hard to figure out whether the accused committed the crime.
In true Canadian fashion, there wasn’t one moment when the piano started playing O Canada or we recited Jeff Douglas’s “I Am Canadian” speech. Instead, it was a collective shoulder shrug that basically said, “We’re stuck here. We might as well figure out the correct answer.”
I’m in the US, but my experience was a lot like that. I ended up as the foreman of a jury that was given an unusually nasty domestic abuse case. It was an intense experience. The court phase lasted three days. The testimony was disturbing and brutal, but the judge did a great job on all counts. The trial was well managed, the legal issues were clearly laid out, and the jury was told what we needed to do and how we should go about it.
Once we were sent to deliberate, everyone settled in rather quickly to doing their jobs carefully and honestly. We had long, detailed, and surprisingly analytical discussions. We requested transcripts of several key sections of the testimony and reviewed some of it word-by-word. Despite the intensity of the subject matter, everyone tried to keep the process rational and not emotional.
There were two holdouts. No one complained about them. We talked with them about why they had reservations and then dug into the evidence around those issues. We spent about a day-and-a-half deliberating, but we did come to a consensus. At the end, I think everyone felt good about our verdict, and about the way we came to it.
The whole process was very much what you hope a trial would be like, but don’t really expect to see. The judge and the lawyers were all engaged, professional, and competent. Everyone on the jury took their jobs seriously. They were thoughtful, careful, and thorough.
That experience actually did a lot for my faith in humanity.
