Friday, March 02, 2007

The jury

Recently I had the opportunity to serve in a jury for the first time. The experience was beyond everything I ever imagined. First the attorneys and judge made the decision that I was worthy of putting the faith of a doctor and a patient in my hands, which is in the rim of my understanding of their decision. I am sure they have a formula in how to make that call. When they called my name I was exicited and cursing their decision. I had to serve the jury and go to work afterwards. There were long days ahead. I was trying to assure myself that I need it this, like I needed some time off.
The first day was the thoughest, my schedule been from 1pm til 3 am did not call for me getting up at 6am to be at the courthouse by 8am. For the first time I had to fight the rush hour traffic, which was bumper to bumper. Neverthless I found an easier way to get downtown on time, but the time did not change because there are only a certain amount of parking spaces and if you did not get there early enough you end up walking a mile to the courthouse. A course I could have used the walking like the strong coffee I prepared every morning and put in coke bottles.
My coffee has to be special, fresh beans, filtered water and no sugar. I grind the beans and using only filtered water to get the true taste, everything is fresh and clean to get the true flavor.
When the trial started everything was like a soap novel, the attorney justing for ground and what can be said and presented. The old fox attorney for the plantiff was wiser then he looked and had the deliberation in his pocket from the start, he knew how to pull the right emotional strings in the jury and thats what really counts. Soon it became a repetition of the same thing over and over. The jury only heard what the attorneys wanted us to hear, but not the whole truth, which is very strange. In a trial the truth is the last item in the agenda.
The best experience of the trial was meeting 11 persons from different walks of life and how we got along and somehow managed to make it fun for us. The conversations we had were enlightened and I laughed until I cried when one of the jurors said that he had a fetish for wonder woman and he was going to to dress like her for halloween. I could not help picturing this red hair guy in a wonder woman custom and..... you can imagine the rest.
Day after day we went to lunch together and got to know each other and we clicked together more or less because when it came to deliberation it was a whole different story. Well the whole story is too long to write but it is very interesting how the judicial system works when peers decide for their fellow citizens.
To make the whole story short the Dr. lost 150,000 dollars to the patient for not getting the right diagnosis that night when the woman broke her chin after falling from a boat while been with her boyfriend in the lake.
In conclusion been a juror is like been a judge and that is a hell of a job.

Mis respetos para los juezes justos.

1 comment:

Pia Sinacento said...

hola pase a visitar de nuevo........