Jury Duty

For years I've said that I wanted to be called for jury duty. Well, the day finally came on July7 21 when I had to report to the East Chicago courthouse for jury duty. On that day numbers 1-70 had to show up. Well, only 23 people came. Do I really think that 47 people were excused? NO!

Since this was a civil trial, only six jurors and one alternate were picked, and I ended up being one of them. More interesting was the fact that in the group of people called to be questioned for jury duty were two former Lake Central students. Too bad they didn't get picked! However, one of the jurors grew up down the street from Sarah and another has kids at Lake Central.

The trial lasted three days, including deliberations. It involved allegations of neglect by the City of Gary when they demolished a building. Apparently the demolition process damaged the building right next to it. The two buildings were built right next to each other, and the evidence pretty clearly indicated that Gary didn't do enough to prevent this from happening.

I served as the foreperson of the jury, which didn't mean much except signing the verdict paper and standing when the judge asked me to and give the verdict paper to the bailiff. I guess now I should be careful when I go through Gary since I was the leader of the group that found them liable! It was pretty exciting to help come to the conclusion that the plaintiff was entitled to about $150,000.

Probably the most humorous moment of the trial was during the closing arguments when the attorney for the City of Gary called the plaintiff's theory that the city had caused the damage the "single crane theory" because one crane had caused all that damage. Because the lawyer looked like Johnnie Cochran, it was hard for us not to laugh and compare it to the infamous glove of the OJ trial.

Though I lost three days of prepping for school, the experience was thrilling. The judge and bailiffs were courteous and friendly. The only drawback was that the trial was rescheduled from Crown Point, and the judge had to take recesses to conduct other hearings. But it was rewarding to fulfill my civic duty, and I hope that after two years, I'll get the chance to do it again. Maybe a criminal trial next time :).