Observations From the Jury Room
A few weeks ago, I was called for jury service at the Los Angeles County Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles. I had every reason to believe that I would not be selected to serve because in my prior experiences with jury service I was not- chosen because one of the attorneys was afraid to have an attorney on the jury, especially one that does exclusively plaintiff’s work. Much to my surprise I was selected this time. (In voir dire , I told counsel that I was an attorney but was never questioned about the nature of my practice). At first I panicked thinking of upcoming deadlines and time spent from the office. Fortunately for my schedule, the case was expected to last 2 days and the single jury question was to determine fair market value of a home taken by the Los Angeles County School District (LAUSD) in 2007 in an eminent domain proceeding. As a trial attorney my experience “inside the box” was extremely interesting and informative. Here’s what I learned:
Lesson 1: You can’t judge a book by its cover. One juror who was selected was a young woman in her late 20s who proudly announced that she was an artist (dancer, actor and painter) and when asked to disclose her marital status sang out that she was “single and available”. She joked at breaks in the trial that her drink container held vodka and after making those announcements literally fell over backwards in her chair twice during the trial, much to the amusement of all in the courtroom. Prior to the case beginning, the judge informed the jury that if they had a question that was not being asked by the attorneys that we could write our question on a piece of paper and submit it to the court. Shortly after the second fall from her chair this juror wrote a question to and passed it to the court clerk. Many of us in the jury “rolled our eyes” imagining the question. The question turned out to be an astute observation that exposed an inconsistency in an expert’s report that the judge, attorneys and everyone else in the jury had missed. This juror went on to serve as our foreperson and provided important insights that helped us reach our verdict.
Lesson 2: What’s important to trial attorney often isn’t important to jury members. The LAUSD expert was an appraiser who made her living being hired by attorneys representing governmental agencies and developers who were taking or purchasing homes for large construction projects. I saw her as a biased “hired gun” who had not surprisingly appraised the property lower than the homeowner’s appraiser. However, the appraiser’s client list didn’t matter to most on the jury and they were impressed by her slick presentation and ability to deflect cross examination .
...Class dissmissed! Lessons three and four will continue with tomorrow's post...
