Jury Duty June 29, 2025

 

Hayter for June 29, 2025

“This week’s message involves Jury Duty."

Have you ever gotten a notice for jury duty? If you own a business, it’s probably bad news. You’ll need a good excuse to get out of it. The excuse has to be better than “Hey, I’ve gotta job!” Of course, if your job is working in a hospital emergency room, you might skate out. 

Several times, I have received the order to appear at the courthouse for jury selection. I was a school teacher at the time of each summons. That meant I had to come up with an assignment for my substitute to give to all the students. When I returned to school, I had to grade all the papers. 

Oh, and if you’re teaching two or more subjects, you’ll have to spend more time inventing different assignments. Working your buns off to come up with assignments for a substitute is not a valid excuse for skipping jury duty. I’ve never tried it, so I can’t be certain of that. 

Speaking of which, when I got old enough to pass on a jury notice, I filled out a form asking to be removed me from the list. I felt terrible about it, but the time had come. One thing that would’ve made me feel more terrible about it is if I called the courthouse and asked to be put back on the jury list.

            The only time I was ever selected on a jury involved a case in Huntsville. It involved a sweet old lady who came terribly close to getting run over while trying to cross the street at one of Huntsville’s in-city hills. The young lady driving over the hill noticed the pedestrian at the last second. The squeal of her tires frightened, and the quick swerve caused the jay-walker to fall and injure a leg or some other body part. I can’t remember.

            After each lawyer offered a summation of the case, we were released to go to lunch. The judge assured us that were we to discuss the case with another juror, we would be castigated. The fact that some of the jurors were women, I assumed the word didn’t mean what I thought it did.

However, I ended up doing something that could’ve castigated me. I went to the site of the mishap to see what it would’ve been like to drive to the top of that hill and immediately see someone creeping in the middle of the road on the other side of the hill? -- By the way, I never shared that information with the other jurors, three of whom I noticed standing on the sidewalk at the top of the hill.

            When we returned to the courthouse, we were escorted to the jury room. The first thing we did was choose the jury foreman. The person selected was an old guy who immediately volunteered. No one seemed to care, so he got the job. After my road inspection, I came up with some important stuff. Something like, “I’ve driven over that hill before. Had an old lady been walking across it, I would’ve had to smash her.”  

Unfortunately, the first thing the foreman asked for was a show of hands to see who considered the defendant not guilty. Twelve hands went up. My investigation was a waste of time.

I assumed the foreman would open the door and wave at the doorman in the hall. I’m sure he had a title. However, it didn’t matter because the foreman didn’t go to the door. Instead, he asked, “So how much are we going to make the plaintiff pay?” Everyone except for me nodded as if to say, “Oh yeah. I forgot about that.”

That’s when I raised my hand and said, “Excuse me.” I got some stares with that one, so I said, “Look, we just ruled in favor of the defendant. She wins the case, but would have to sue the plaintiff before she could get any money out of it. So the plaintiff  doesn’t have to pay anyone, but her lawyer.”

 After some quiet mumbling in the room, the foreman said, “Let me handle this, okay? All right, the lady who frightened the jaywalker doesn’t have to pay anything. So I need to check the box labelled ‘defendant’. Right?

When we entered the courtroom, each juror (including me) refused to look at the plaintiff. I felt sorry for the old lady, but I was also frightened by her. Fortunately, the jury was the first to get to leave.

Second jury duty: Several years later, I was one of a bunch of people summoned for jury duty in Conroe. We were told to grab a chair in the hallway while the two lawyers tried to settle their case out of court. We stayed in the hallway until about 11:30. That was when a well-dressed guy walked up and told us that the lawyers had agreed to compromise. Then he told us to come back in the morning for another case.

At that point, one guy got majorly steamed. I’m calling him Smith. The man had already missed one day of work and was now told that he had to lose at least one more. Of course, he got five bucks for each day. Hopefully, they pay a bit more now.

The next morning, we all showed up and wandered the hallway till 11:00. That’s when we were told once again that both sides had agreed on a settlement. It seemed that everyone was happy, except for Mr. Smith.

Well, we each did our duty. But I’ve gotta tell you, jurisprudence was tough to handle that week, my friend.

End

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