I hope that if I ever needed a fair and impartial jury of my peers to deliberate a verdict for/against me, that it would be done by neighbors who understand that the point is that we are ALL equal in the eyes of the law and the cost for a fair and just society is the non-reluctant and enthusiastic participation in it.

The one I felt was most worthwhile was a delivery man who sued an HVAC company because their driver hit his delivery truck and caused a back injury. After all the testimony we deliberated for about a day and a half decided upon $26,000 or something like that.

A couple weeks later I saw one of the HVAC company’s vans and asked the driver if he knew the person who had been sued. Come to find out the HVAC’s insurance company offered $1,000,000 but the plantiff refused and took them to court.

This was many years ago but instead of remembering the personalities of my fellow jurors I recall our coming together for a fair and equitable resolution of the case.

It was a civil suit where a taxi driver was suing another driver over a car accident. It was horrible for many reasons. I swear these are all true.

- When the jury first got together the judge explicitly told us not to do anything and wait for the bailif to come get us and as soon as they left us alone someone tried to nominate me for foreman because “I had the best looking shirt on”

- One of the potential jurors claimed that his sister had been in a car accident once so he wasn’t sure he could be unbiased. The attorney’s rolled their eyes and asked if he really thought that would make him unable to render an unbiased opinion. He answered “Well, you never know…” and was eventually dismissed.

- One of the Jurors fell asleep multiple times during the actual trial.

- When it came time to elect a foreman “Bob” was elected foreman because he was in the bathroom and everyone thought it would be funny to elect him foreman while he was in the bathroom.

- Part of the deliberation was over if and how much in damages to award the taxi driver because he was out of work for several months as a result of the accident. Even though he submitted a tax return as a basis to support how much income he lost out on while being unable to work, on of the jurors insisted on trying to estimate how many fares he would get per day x how much per fare – gas expense to come up with his own calculation of the damages because he didnt think the taxi driver reported all his income on the tax return (probably true, but a separate issue…)