16 Mar Jury Duty – It changes you.

I’ll have to admit, I wrestled with whether or not to write this post and came very close to cutting this one loose.  However, it was such an emotionally impactful event in my life for a week that I wanted to forge ahead.  I was selected for Jury Duty, and I like any other warm-blooded American was annoyed and wanted out. I quickly scanned through the reasons and excuses you can provide that allow you to get out of it or request a different time period, I didn’t have any and “I work a lot of hours and am important at my company” isn’t even remotely close to a sufficient excuse.

When my fateful day to perform my civic duty arrived I headed on over to the Starbucks on the way, grabbed a draft Cold Brew as a treat and drove 20 minutes away to the highly anticipated unknown.  When I arrived to the county court house I was quite surprised, it was a big open room with high ceilings, natural light and about 150 people at various tables in my same situation.  The front desk staff that I checked in with were incredibly friendly, supportive and believe it or not I felt like a customer or client instead of a number.  Very curious.  These kind ladies provided me a game plan for the day and what I could expect and then I migrated to an open seat and joined seven others to round out our table of 8.  We introduced ourselves, shared a bit of our story and then went back to our phones or in my case, laptop and knocked out work.

Eventually an announcement was made and they called all those assigned to Group A or whichever group they were, they assembled, and off they went to a new version of the unknown, possibly to never have been seen again.  We waited.  My group didn’t get called all morning, I worked and socialized here and there, stepped aside and made phone calls, it simply had become a mildly inconvenient office day quite honestly.  The Group A people returned, they had a packet and they could only share that they couldn’t discuss the packet and they heard some details about a Civic Case and were to answer questions on the page.  Then my fate arrived, they called my group, we assembled, sized up our 30+ peers and headed off lead by a court worker into the unknown.

We reached a private area and were briefed that we were about to hear a rundown on the Criminal Case, some of its details, and see the defendant himself on the stand as these remarks were read and illustrated.  We were prepared that it was a difficult case to hear and may be troubling information to take in for some and they asked us to prepare ourselves emotionally.  Yuck, great, lucky me. They explained that there were 30+ of us so they had a pool to select from and they’d par it down to something like 14 to have the regular 12 plus a couple alternates (came in handy later, actually).  We were assigned our number, finally, a number and in we went to be seated and hear the opening remarks.

It was brutal, the judge proceeded to read something like 5-8 pages of written content in regard to the case omitting official names, using initials but sharing what the criminal complaints were and the dates.  In short, a 19 year old step brother was doing some unspeakable things toward his 12-14 year old sister.  The defendant was present, the plaintiff was not.  There was no physical evidence, no DNA, no “Law and Order” type curve balls coming our way.  Just a really ugly story to be told by both sides, and we were told the proceedings would take the entire week to complete.

We concluded and headed downstairs with our own packet of questions to answer, and dwelled on what we’d heard.  This big room was different now, we were different at that point. I honestly felt like I wanted to be on that jury because if I was either party, the plaintiff or defendant, I’d want me on in that group to consider all information in a fair and equal lens based on facts and details provided.  Myself and 4-5 others were selected for a private swearing in ceremony (if you can call it that), and we were questioned in private about some of the remarks on our questionnaire form.  They asked me about my job, my background and some specifics I provided.  At one point, I don’t call what the defense attorney asked me, but it was a combination of kind of a dumb/obvious question, but for some reason I felt cornered.  In that moment, I happened to make eye contact with the prosecuting attorney who was a young guy, charismatic, and he had a smirk on his face.  I knew he was thinking exactly what I was, and I laughed.  Straight fear took over me, I looked the judge square in the eyes, apologized and asked the question be asked again because it seemed to be framed oddly.  It was re-asked, I answered, and a few minutes later I was dismissed from the group and back to the waiting room and unknown.

I got back to work and awaited my fate until they called all 30+ of us back to the court room, we were all sworn in as a group, and the two attorneys peppered various jurors with questions.  I assumed I was getting dismissed since I laughed during a private session, but I also recalled a friend of mine in the legal world saying “you’re a polished professional, they’re picking you if you get called”.  Eventually the aforementioned prosecuting attorney called my juror number, began speaking out a sentence or two and as he began his question was rapidly approaching my seated position. Neither attorney had done this to anyone else but he came right up with in a foot or two of me, dead serious stern look on his face and asked “how will you handle it if or when you are the ONLY person in that room that disagrees and force deliberations to continue!?”.  I leaned back in my chair while remaining calm, cool, collected and simply said “I’m a Vice President of Operations in a very challenging and unprofessional industry, I live my life making unpopular decisions, and I’m very comfortable being uncomfortable and unpopular”.  He nodded and I knew, I’d be there the rest of the week.

I was right and I spent the following 4 days in a court room, in and out of the room, back to the juror private room.  Fortunately they allowed us phones and just made us agree each time we left the court room that we would not google the case or anything to do with similar cases.  I won’t make you hear out the day in day out experience I had in the courtroom but it was hard, really hard, jurors cried, audience members cried, the family cried, it was tough.  Sometimes when ushered back to the juror room we all just looked at each other and knew we weren’t speaking, just sitting and reflecting.  Harder than these moments though, was the drive home and looking at my wife unable to share anything about the case in any capacity.  I couldn’t share what it was, I could only share that it was criminal.  A couple nights I remember just being a shell of myself, the weight of two peoples worlds’ and their shared respective family was on my shoulders plus 11 others.  It was hard.  Really hard.

We finished the case, we declared the defendant guilty, it was a few hours of deliberation but there had been some evidence that was more finite than they’d perhaps indicated in the opening reading remarks.  I never regretted the decision, we stood up for a victim that couldn’t speak up for herself.  She was utterly mute when she initially took the stand and ended up urinating a full bladder all over herself, and the witness stand.  She was terrified to stare at her brother and family and tell her story, petrified.

What does this story have to do with FI? Probably nothing, there’s one piece that stands out to me which is the power and flexibility of being in a financial position where missing a week of work doesn’t matter to your financial situation.  The $230 check they sent me for my time and gas isn’t going to off set a weeks wages for anyone, minimum wage or otherwise.  So that’s scary, congrats, perform your civic duty and miss paying your bills in the process! Take that a step further and imagine if you get called on for Federal level service? They make you remain available for a window of time in the range of 2-3 months, maybe that 3-6 months emergency fund isn’t such a bad idea afterall.

The moral take away here is, not everyone will be fortunate enough (if you can call it that) to serve on a meaningful case.  Perhaps you get a civic case of two companies arguing out an insurance claim, but what I’ll leave you with is this; when you get sworn in, it changes you, it should at least.  I felt vehemently inclined to answer questions more honestly than I would in any other setting.  Not that I lie in other settings, but you can evade a question or choose not to answer at a dinner party, not in that moment, though.  I now know what 100% honesty feels like, and perhaps it’ll help guide me in my future.