I had an interesting experience yesterday. I spent the day sitting on a mock jury. Since I had to sign a confidentiality agreement, I can't disclose any details of the case or the parties involved, but I can say a few things.
To start with, this was a civil case which is currently going through the courts here in SoCal. There were 30 of us that were invited to participate. We spent the morning listening to presentations by two attorneys, one for the plaintiff and one for the defendant (they were members of the actual legal teams handling the case). We also watched portions of five taped depositions of witnesses for the plaintiff and defense, after which we were asked to rate each witness using several criteria such as likability, believability, composure, confidence, honesty, etc. We also had to fill out questionnaires several times during the morning to gauge our changing views based on what we were hearing.
After lunch, we were broken-up into three 'juries' where we had about three hours to decide the case. We were each given a case book, a binder of documents similar to what an actual juror would get in a real trial with copies of all of the items that were placed into evidence (at the end of the day, we had to leave EVERYTHING that we had been given during the day even our note pads where we wrote our thoughts and questions during the presentations and deliberations). During the deliberation we could only talk among ourselves (there was a facilitator in the room, but she could not make any comments or answer questions, we had to depend on the material in our binders and our jury instructions). We had to elect a 'foreman' who was actually responsible for keeping everyone focused on the task in front of us (I was NOT the foreman). Our jury consisted of seven women and three men. In order to get a verdict, we had to have at least eight out of ten voting for or against a verdict (unanimity is only required in a criminal case). Otherwise the case would be considered undecided. If we voted in favor of the plaintiff, we would also then have to decide on an amount for the monetary judgement as well as potential punitive damages.
I won't reveal the details of our deliberations except to say that we DID reach a verdict, on a vote of nine to one (I was NOT the lone holdout). Note that we never learned how the other two 'juries' settled the case. Also our deliberations were video taped and we were only allowed to use our first names throughout the day.
That's about all that I can say about the day, other than it was very interesting and educational. Note that I've served on a couple of actual juries in the past, but they were both criminal cases.
As for how we were selected, apparently they simply made random phone calls until they got 30 people who met their requirement, the first being that you had to be a registered voter in the state of California. The telephone interview lasted about 20 minutes as they asked questions about our background, such as have you ever been convicted of a felony, your age, racial heritage, employment status, etc. They also were very careful to determine if you were related to or was a close friend of any of the people/organizations involved including members of the legal teams and the courts. There was a follow-up call a few days later in case we had questions or had decided to not participate.
And for this we were provided breakfast and lunch as well as $250 in cash.
This was my first experience with a mock jury. Now many years ago, just as so-called 'hybrid cameras' (AKA mirrorless/interchangeable lens) were coming on the market, I was part of a focus group which was asked our opinions and views on what we thought of this technology and what sort of features would we be looking for in such a camera. For that, we were paid $100.
| 