My Civic Duty

I haven't done jury duty for over a decade. My most recent summons were just after two of my babies when nursing was a very legitimate excuse. And since I can't use that excuse anymore, when my letter came, I made arrangements. I thought it would be interesting to spend a day doing my civic duty. My previous experience was from when I was 19. I got chosen to be on the jury and was put on an interesting trial that ended promptly at 5:00 p.m. It was an overall good experience and I learned a lot.

This experience turned out to be even more educational than I planned. My one day of adventure turned into a week.

As I rushed to the courthouse that first day, I bumped into another girl who seemed to be headed in my same direction. She saw my summons and we became fast friends. Both not sure exactly where we were going, but grateful to have someone to be ignorant with! When we arrived at the courthouse after a two block sprint, we found a huge line and realized we didn't have to do a morning run after all. The courthouse was particularly busy that day and it took forever to get through security.

Tanya and I had lots of time to get to know each other.

As we entered the waiting and briefing area with around 100 or more other people we found a spot on the floor to hang out and do what jurors do best - we waited for further instruction. As I filled out the paperwork, I got to the part where you can waive your fee for jury duty. $10/day for the first 3 days, $25/day after that. I felt happy to donate $10 and figured the county needed the money more than me.

We watched a well-done video that made me feel patriotic for doing jury duty. It made me want to get picked for the jury that day, it sounded so interesting.

We finally started figuring out how it would work. There were 4-5 judges that would be needing a jury that day. Each judge had a bailiff that would come down and randomly choose around 30 jurors. That group would then head to the courtroom and either be chosen for that jury or sent home.

After 3 bailiffs came in and not having my name called, I began to think I would be going home soon. The strange coincidence is that Tanya never got called either. We were grateful to get to stick together for such a long time, but knew our luck would run out soon enough. We enjoyed chatting about being moms (she had just discovered THAT morning that she was pregnant!), work, family, jury, hobbies, etc. I also discovered that my bishop's wife was there that same day. And I met a super nice guy who heard me talking about my three girls. He got all excited and said he had three girls too. They were all in college and it was sweet to hear how proud he was of his girls and how much he loved them. All in all, I had a great time and met some really nice people that day. Little did I know . . .

The few of us left by the afternoon were excused for a long lunch. This was a huge blessing because it was long enough for me to go home and finish up some things for our Young Women in Excellence that night. Yes, that's right, it was the same day as our YW in Excellence! That was very stressful. But the time we were given was just enough for me to finish up some last minute things for that night. Oh yeah, and I was up until 2 a.m. putting together a slideshow for the girls the night before.

I headed back to the courthouse and we finally went with the last bailiff. Both Tanya and I were picked in the same group. This time, there were about 40 of us. We filed into a courtroom. The fun and games were over. There were two lawyers, a defendant, the judge and her bailiffs. The judge explained a few things and then began reading the 25 counts against the defendant. It took her a half an hour to read them all. They were horrible - I didn't understand everything I was hearing, but I heard things like old blood, new blood, abusive head trauma, under aged child, crib toss, withholding care, couch toss, etc. My stomach turned as I listened to all the charges. I imagined this little child, Jayden was the name repeated over and over, and all the horrible abuse that the words brought to my mind. By the time the judge was finished, I wanted to cry or throw up or run away. I hated that man - Zachary H.

The feeling in the room was heavy. Some people sighed. Some looked down. Others grunted with disgust. Then the lawyers started to question us. It was strange and nerve wracking to feel like we were on trial. The lawyers called on whomever they wanted and asked hard questions. I tried to pipe up when I had something decent to say because they tended to probe the people who weren't volunteering any comments for the discussion. As we discussed whether we could judge this man fairly, the lawyers took notes. Asked us personal questions. Some people broke down and said they could not participate in the trial because of the content that would be brought up. I said something about how I didn't want to listen to awful stories of abuse either, but if no one is willing to listen and try to be fair, then the whole system doesn't work. I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but it's true. I think that is why I was chosen to be on the jury. Drat.

The judge informed us that the trial would last 3-5 days. Eeek! My mind started racing. I still had YW in Excellence that night, I had to figure out childcare for the next day and for the rest of the week. I had to emotionally prepare to hear a trial for a man accused of abusing his baby boy. It was exhausting. But there was one cool and strange thing. Tanya was picked to be on the jury too! What are the chances of that? We were both dreading the trial, but grateful that we would be there together at least. Strange how things work out like that sometimes. Tender mercies...

The next few days were crazy, busy, sad, fascinating, burdensome, funny, and educational.

The trial ended up not being so cut and dry. The day we heard the charges, I hated Zachary H. I wanted him to be punished. I dreaded listening to the evidence. The hardest evidence to sit through were the 911 calls when the dad claimed that his son was choking and you could hear Jayden struggling to breathe. It still makes me cringe just thinking about it.

During those days I learned a lot about sub dermal hematomas and abusive head trauma. It was a fascinating case. The witnesses were interesting, the lawyers were characters, the defendant was likable - it was almost interesting enough to be a television episode. (o: Quirky doctors and lawyers claiming them to be quacks. (later the judge told us that the quirky doctor witness winked at her out in the hall - what a kook!)

In the end, I felt sad for Zachary. I didn't think he was innocent, but I didn't think he was the monster I envisioned that first day. I believe he truly loved his baby boy. I think he just shouldn't have been his primary caregiver. There were still a lot of questions in the end. He never admitted to shaking Jayden once except for right before the first 911 call. At this time he said he thought Jayden was dying (from choking on formula) and he shook him to wake him up when he went limp. He was scared. This sounded plausible, but was it true? Then there was a second choking incident. We had to decide if Jayden really choked, because the symptoms he was showing could also be side effects of abusive head trauma. Looong story short - after hours and hours of deliberation - over the course of two days - we voted guilty on about half of the charges. It was so hard carrying the burden of being a judge of another person. What if we were wrong? What if we were too hard on him or too soft? What if we just ruined his life and he's innocent? So many of these worries cluttered my mind. FYI Jayden is now a one year old and is developmentally on track.

The 9 other women and 3 men on our jury were great people. I thoroughly enjoyed that part of my weeklong jury adventure. We worked on this fish puzzle for 2 or 3 days during our breaks. We were so proud when we finished.

One of the mornings Jessie so kindly brought in Krispie Kreme!
We also had fun doing trivia, talking about our families, hobbies, etc. We were not allowed to talk about the case until the time to deliberate so we had all kinds of interesting conversation.


Kathy, Sandra and I. Sweet, sweet ladies.

Tanya and I - jury buddies. Who knew our chance meeting at the intersection the week before would turn into a weeklong friendship on jury?

This was where I "lived" for a week. Overall, it was a great experience. There are so many good people out there. If the group of jury members I was with was an accurate sampling of the people in Washington County, then I feel pretty lucky to be surrounded by so many nice people. Even Mike, the "tough guy" Marlboro man as I dubbed him in my brain (o: - ended up seeming like a pretty nice guy. I think he thought the rest of us, especially the girls, were a little strange for bonding so quickly, and he teased a lot. By the end of that week spending sooo much time together through an emotional experience how could we not bond?

Anyway, good news - I got to take back my noble donation of $10 to the county and opted to take my $95 I earned over the course of the week. It helped pay for the great lunches that we enjoyed in downtown Hillsboro. I discovered some great places to eat and shop. There's got to be some perks to jury duty, right? I loved eating out every day with the lunch ladies - that was very enjoyable. Did I mention the tour of the haunted Venetian theater after lunch there one day? Did I mention it was dark and the lady had a great British accent? Did I mention how we all got goosebumps hearing her firsthand and secondhand accounts of paranormal activity in there? Whew - all kinds of excitement was going on that week! (o:

After all was said and done, I was very grateful for the blessing of being a stay at home mom. For that week of "working" full time, I really had to use my time in the evening wisely to keep up on laundry, food, chores, etc. It all worked out thanks to a supportive husband and wonderful friends who were happy to help with the girls. But I can't imagine juggling all that on a daily basis. I am very blessed. I had a few mishaps too, like the day I was so looking forward to the lovely chicken noodle soup I worked hard on the night before - only to discover that I never plugged in the crock pot that morning. Baahh!