Jury Duty (Part 5)

I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            -Job 29:14-15

I love quoting The Bible… and other works of fiction for that matter. Many of the passages radiate a certain wisdom. Especially for a tome that otherwise is so egregiously filled with absolute horseshit.
For the purposes of our dramatic judicial conclusion however, it will do quite well.
While I’m not so sure about the diadem (I don’t don headwear gracefully), my robe of righteousness was fitting quite snugly. I wanted to guide the sightless and give mobility to the gimpy.
In other words, I was prepared to render judgment.
Day two of the trial started innocuously enough with both sides rehashing testimony from the prior day. But soon, the process ceded to monotony. We had to hear again (in snippets) the testimony of the uninsured motorist who struck Doug, the plaintiff. I was not sure what the defense was trying to do here.
The motorist was entirely at fault, the speed (even State Farm’s claim of a reduced rate of impact) was enough to have caused the claimed damage. The guy in the truck (the only witness to the accident) distinctly stated that Doug seemed to be in a great deal of pain at the scene.
I’m no lawyer (I still suffer ethical quandaries), but this seemed unwise.
It also unnecessarily lengthened the proceedings which were now beginning to effect my fellow jurors and myself.
Even with a sense of duty and obligation to truth it remained difficult to stay focused. There was so much redundancy. And not all of it for emphasis. Questions previously answered in full were slightly reworded with no variation of result, paperwork was shuffled, irrelevant information was shared to no avail and the constant repetition of long established facts on both sides did little more than perturb the panel and judge.
If I can offer a bit of advice (in the spirit of constructive criticism) for improving the experience of the juror it is this:

MORE COMFORTABLE CHAIRS!

My ass was sorer than a Filipino whore’s on $1 Anal Night.
The blood had simply drained from it. Hours of numbness and continual squirming in one’s chair for relief does not make for sound focus or judgment.
It’s a wonder that justice is ever served.
And a deadened ass is the least of it. People get bored and fidgety. It was hard to look around, as you are in the spotlight so to speak, but the jurors' restlessness was tangible. Constant shifting in the chairs, throat clearing, coughing (it sounded like we all had consumption), finger twiddling, toe tapping- hell, I’m surprised some of the more youthful members of the panel didn’t put on their earbuds and crank the iPod.
Combine that with a person’s preconceptions, bias and bigotries and the idea that the “truth will out” becomes naively optimistic and logistically impossible.
The final summations were given. Doug’s bumbling attorney went first and flat-out blew the case by asking for a sum of money so inappropriately stratospheric that it immediately cast a shadow of doubt on his client’s integrity. It certainly cast a larger shadow on his. Before this point I felt Doug had a chance at some real money. The mood of the jurors seemed abiding at times. I don’t want to say they were empathetic (a quality few Alabamans possess), but they were willing to nod and shake their heads in pity at poor Doug’s plight.
The Plaintiff’s case was rested.
Then, the Ice Woman cometh.
She reiterated State Farm’s weak stance. That Doug’s pre-existing condition could not have been exacerbated by this accident (despite having no evidence or testimony to back this up). That he had a serial history of claims resulting from auto accidents he had been in (he had only two, 7 and 10 years prior, both not his fault). That, at a vibrant and youthful 34 years of age, Doug had more than enough time to heal his minor injuries, get back on his feet and make something of himself.
The defense rested. She sat down. And I swear, I vaguely heard crackling and creaking as she crossed her legs.
We were escorted to the jury room for deliberation. We were instructed to choose a foreman. It was unanimous. Due to his gregarious nature and inability to keep a single thought to himself, my Hebrew friend, the Stradivarius-strumming Semite of the South was elected.
He humbly accepted and then proceeded with a rhetorical flourish so self-deprecating, so full of shtick and so outside our task at hand that I wanted to book him at a resort in the Poconos.
Everyone laughed uncomfortably. Mostly because they are from Alabama and hate kikes. Me, because we had a job to do and I sensed that I was one of the very few people of the twelve who was taking this duty at all seriously.
Here was an injured man’s quality of life and future prospects at stake and barely anyone could be bothered enough to think more than superficially on the matter. They had recoiled in disgust at the figure Doug’s attorney had suggested and now their animosity toward the mythical “Stella Awards” type lawsuits would preclude them from giving anything meaningful to Doug to assist, you know, in the actual compensation he was due.
For those who are unaware, the “Stella Awards” were named after Stella Liebeck, the woman who sued McDonalds for the infamous hot coffee incident. They are falsified lawsuit payouts that corporations want to promote in order to foster a belief that frivolous lawsuits are out of control and are increasing costs for everything. They are assisted by tort reform politicians (read: Republicans) who whip up their constituencies with these false cases in order to benefit big business, who do not want to be held accountable for their negligence. This perfidy is all done with the knowledge that the number of lawsuits (since the ‘70s) and amounts of awards (since 1992) have been steadily declining.
But the campaign has worked. Every moron in that jury room besides me believes it. That these gold-bricking, lazy-ass, lawsuit-lotto people like Doug need to be taught a lesson by good, upstanding working folk. When will financially impoverished republicans stop voting and acting against their interests in the name of hate and fear? Damn Nixon's "Southern Strategy".
They had forgotten, of course, we had been told the fact that Doug had held a full-time job since he was 17 years old (for 17 years).
Looking around that table was a depressing thing. Hearing these people talk was even more upsetting.
I had written down a list of points that I thought should be addressed during deliberation. In short form:

• State Farm had given no credible evidence that Doug’s pre-existing condition might NOT have been aggravated by the crash.

• The doctor’s and driver’s testimony backed Doug’s claims.

• Doug’s past claims were proven not to be his fault.

• Doug was believable on the stand.

• The uninsured motorist clause in Doug’s State Farm policy directly dealt with this exact occurrence. He was covered.

• His salary at the plant was $30,000/year.

• What price do you put on alleviating physical pain? When does constant physical pain bleed over into mental anguish?

• Imagine spending the rest of your life in debilitating pain or constant discomfort due to the actions of another. Would you not want your insurance company to make good on their promise?

I threw each of these around the room, getting nods of approval from some and disdainful leers from others for making them think about such bleeding-heart nonsense.
After I took the temperature of the room regarding life-long disability payments (a real no go, I actually agreed) I made the grand mistake of suggesting the compensation should include an educational stipend in order for Doug to learn a new, less physically demanding trade. You would have thought I had asked to suck the blood from the palms of Jesus just for kicks and a cheap high.
“Education?!”, one woman hissed, “Are we gonna set this guy up for life?”
“Well, no”, I offered, “I think everyone’s spoken as to whether or not that was going to happen. I just thought we could help him out in the ‘teach a man to fish’ sort of way.”
Lead balloon.
Everyone was becoming rather frustrated. With our lack of progress mostly, at me specifically. I was the Henry Fonda from 12 Angry Men in the room. I even thought about that film the past evening. A man alone. Seeking truth and justice amidst a room full of disconnected, bored, indifferent shit-heels who wanted to simply get home and escape this intellectual and moral tangle they found themselves in.
Don’t for a moment think that I was behaving out of some misguided sense of a glorified, heroic crusader facing insurmountable odds. Seriously, that was not it. I am a selfish prick most of the time and have small room for pikers or grifters or layabouts or cads. I didn’t even really care for the cut of Doug’s jib. He looked like another simple, uneducated cracker asshole to me. Alabama is filthy with them.
I just wanted to do my part in getting Doug some justice. I realized I was the only one particularly involved in that quest. Crusader or not.
“Do the job”, I thought, glimpsing across the table at their faces, “Have a little fortitude, it’s fucking important.”

NEXT:

The Final Judgment.

or

Doug's Folly.