Just turned on Channel 4 News which seemed to be covering trials, the length of them and if juries can understand their complex nature. As soon as I had turned the television on, it was covering the fact that a trial had to be postponed for a day because a member of the jury’s hearing aid broke. Does anyone know any further details about this?

Whilst hearing aids are acceptable over here (without communication support), having communication support is not. It becomes the 13th person issue, within the deliberation room. It seems rather bizarre that a juror functioning with a hearing aid alone (after all, it does not replace natural hearing) is safer or indeed more legal than one who is relying on communication via a third party.

The rest of the Commissioner’s Letter

Here’s the rest of the Commissioner’s letter from the other day. I was startled to see the fact in the following:

The current schedule for ASL interpreters has deaf jurors scheduled one each Monday from now until January 31, 2005. We can only schedule one (deaf juror) per week as there are a limited number of ASL interpreters available to us and if a deaf juror were empanelled, the interpreters would have to serve that juror on a trial and wouldn’t be available throughout the week.
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Sacramento County, CA Jury Commissioner Letter

I had told a friend of mine, another attorney who has a profound hearing loss but is not technically deaf, about my recent and ongoing experience with the Sacramento County call to juror service. She decided to send an inquiry to the Commissioner to see why deaf people have to go and show up in the jury waiting room rather than going online to see if their juror pool number or go on the telephone and see if the pool number gets called in.
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Taking notes

Before the actual trial began, the judge and attorneys let us know that there were notebooks and pens on our chairs so we could take notes during the trial. They said it was up to us as individuals if we wanted to take notes, that some people found it helpful, particularly when there are a number of witnesses present, to keep the different accounts of the story separate. If we didn’t want to take notes, that would be fine too. We always had the option of the court reporter reading back to us during trial or in the deliberation room.
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It must be contagious!

As I was walking into my office building this morning, I noticed an interpreter walking toward me. We stopped to say hello and catch up before going to our respective offices. She then informed me that she is on jury duty this week in Sacramento County. I told her of our other coworker who had stopped by my office earlier this week to tell me about her jury duty summons. Is it the water or what?

Deaf coworker gets a jury summons!

Now for a pause in my writings on my own experience as a juror! A deaf coworker stopped by my office this morning to let me know she too had received a summons for jury duty! What a coincidence? However, knowing the Sacramento County jury summons system, I am not too surprised as the county uses a socalled ‘one day service’. The theory is instead of requiring people to stay at the courthouse for two weeks as was done years ago, now, with the telephone call in and online checking of the jury pool numbers to see if your number comes up, and if it does, you have to go in. That way folks don’t actually have to go to the jury waiting room except for us deaf people.

Apparently the jury commissioner office must go through a lot of people on either the Registry of Motor Vehicles’ list or Voter’s List as the summons says if you were called last year, you can get off of the jury summons list.
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My second experience on Jury Duty

A few years ago, I received my second notice to show up for jury duty. At that time, I had changed jobs and was working for the state of California. The state allows its employees to serve on the jury and still get their wages during the performance of this civic duty.

I returned the notice to let the Jury Commissioner’s Office know I would need a reasonable accommodation of a sign language interpreter while waiting as a potential juror. They sent me a letter informing me that my service would have to be postponed and they would send me another notification with the date of when to show up.

Despite that letter notifying me my service was postponed, the ironic thing was, I received a notice during the week I was originally supposed to show up, telling me I would be fined for contempt of court because I hadn’t shown up when I was supposed to.
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Continued:

During the voir dire, when the jury pool was being questioned, the attorneys for both sides would ask particular questions to make sure the potential jurors would not be biased or prejudiced during the trial. When the attorneys knew I was a lawyer by training, they asked me if I could make a fair decision as well as not impress the remainder of the jurors with my knowledge of law, I said I could do that.

The trial experience:

The plaintiff was a young white woman 17 and a half years old. We noticed she wore young girl, conservative dresses every day to trial. Her attorney was one of those who like loafer type shoes with tassels on them. When he had the plaintiff on the stand, he asked her what her hopes and dreams were and how she felt after the accident in the hotel’s hot tub. She was on the witness stand for some time telling her story. There was also an expert witness who testified as to what Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is and what it is caused by. In the USA, most people associate PTSD with Vietnam Veterans who were the largest group of people to have these symptoms as a result of their war time experience.

The plaintiff alleged in addition to the hematoma and injuries suffered in the hot tub, she developed PTSD as a result too.

The jury deliberations:

The jury room was a large room with a long rectangular table. After the judge instructed us on what we could make a decision on, we went to the jury deliberation room. We voted on the foreman as I had noted previously. Then we went through the judge’s instructions and went around the table with our opinions. I forgot to mention that one of the other jurors was a local TV reporter which made a nice touch to the jury pool. After a couple of days of deliberations, we decided we would award the plaintiff a minor sum of money to pay for her medical expenses. We weren’t quite convinced that the pool injuries had been that bad except for the psychological aspect. We were also puzzled why no doctor other than the psychologist had been called to the stand.
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My First Time as a Juror

I received my summons to show up for jury duty in 1993 and postponed the summons several times as our agency did not have a full time Executive Director and I was the acting Executive Director at the time. Finally our agency had a full time ED and I got the summons to show up. I informed my employer of my pending jury duty and she said “Why don’t you tell them you can’t show up because you won’t get paid?” I looked at her and said, “Haven’t you read the agency’s Personnel Manual yet?” (I would have thought that reading material would have been first on her list of priorities, to familiarize herself with the agency Personnel Policies.) She said no and I said well, if you will read the policy, it says it is agency policy to give employees paid leave while on jury duty. She was dismayed and said she was going to change the agency policy so that the agency would no longer provide paid leave to employees.

Jury Duty Experience

I then reported for jury duty, found the interpreters, and found myself waiting with other potential jurors. We would get called into a courtroom and people would be individually questioned to see if they had biases or opinions to the type of proceeding that was to take place. In one matter, we were given written questionnaires asking our opinion of a variety of topics. The questions indicated the civil action would be a tort action, requesting medical and punitive damages for an injury incurred at a hotel hot spa.

We were then sat down in a courtroom and the lawyers began the voir dire of the panel of potential jurors. We were all asked our opinions of different things, probably to show whether we were biased or not. The lawyers started to use either their peremptory challenges or for-cause challenges to dismiss individuals they felt had a bias or prejudice that would prevent them from rendering a fair verdict in the action.
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Hands On TV Program in Ireland

I did some ‘googling’ on the Internet to see if stories from other countries pertaining to deaf people and jury duty would surface. One item that showed up was a Jury Duty segment on the Irish program, Hands On. I contacted the folks there and they very kindly gave me a transcript of what was stated during the broadcast.

Apparently the Jury Act of 1976 in Ireland states that deaf people are ‘incapable’ to serve jury duty. If summoned, the individual is required to sign the jury summons, agreeing he/she is unfit, or face a fine. On the program, the commentator asked if this were an infringement on deaf rights or a necessary exclusion to ensure a fair trial for all?
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