Feb 13, 2000

JURY SERVICE A DUTY, NOT AN ORDEAL

Colorado's jurors serve for "one day or one trial," so if you're not seated on a trial jury on the day you're summoned, you've done your civic duty just by showing up.

That's not so onerous, and there are continuing efforts to make the system work better for jurors. A bill working its way through the state legislature says that prospective jurors will be excused if they've appeared for service in the state courts within the current calendar year.

It also makes someone's history of service part of the records kept on the master list of prospective jurors, called the "master juror wheel," so that people who haven't been showing up get called sooner.

"To the extent practical," it says "individuals with the least amount of jury appearances or service in the most recent years shall be summoned prior to individuals who have appeared or served more recently."

Sounds fair to me. The bill has passed the state Senate and is assigned to the House Judiciary Committee.

I was summoned for jury service in Denver in January, for the first time since I moved to Colorado in 1997. If you've been putting this off, and wonder what you've been missing, let me say that it was very interesting and I was even the slightest bit disappointed not to be chosen for the jury, because it sounded like an interesting case.

There were 22 of us in the jury pool, chosen by the computer at random from the 196 people who appeared for jury duty that Monday, when several trials were starting. Denver District Court Judge Paul A. Markson Jr. explained the general outlines of the case.

That's different from the last time I was on a jury, in Los Angeles several years ago, and it's a good idea. Because we knew what the case was about, we were better able to answer questions with all relevant information.

This was a complicated personal-injury case, arising out of a four-car accident on a freeway entrance ramp. The driver of Car No. 2 was suing the drivers of Car No. 3 and Vehicle No. 4 (a welding truck), but the driver of Car. No. 3, in addition to being the defendant in this case, was a "cross claimant," that is, she was also suing the driver of the welding truck and his company.

This trial was to allocate responsibility for the accident between Driver No. 3 and Driver No. 4; Driver No. 2, the plaintiff, was not at fault. Damages would be determined at a later trial.

Markson set a tone of respectful informality for the voir dire, the questions asked of jurors so the court and the attorneys can determine whether any should be excused for cause (knowing one of the parties to the case, for example). He proudly claimed 13 grandchildren, and though I'm not sure why grandchildren were relevant, people do like to brag about them and there was a little ripple of amusement when one of the jurors said she had 15.

I didn't find any of the questions intrusive, but then, I write about my life in the newspaper all the time so I wouldn't. What do you do, are you married, what does your spouse do, how long have you lived in Denver, what's your education, have you ever been involved with a lawsuit or testified in court?

Some people did seem uncomfortable, though. One woman said, so softly that I'm not even certain that I heard her correctly, that her husband had committed suicide. A middle-aged man who had been a manager hesitated before saying he was unemployed. A doctor who had been sued for malpractice a couple of times wasn't eager to talk about it. A young man had to explain he'd been in court because he was arrested.

One of the lawyers I talked to afterwards - during the trial, they aren't permitted to talk to jurors - told me that jurors who are uncomfortable answering specific questions in open court can ask to do it privately, and I think I remember that point being made on the introductory video. But if the judge mentioned it during his remarks I must have missed it.

Once Markson had been through the whole panel he gave the two sides half an hour each for questions, and we got to ask questions too, another helpful change from what I remember.

After the voir dire was done, the bailiff gave the attorneys a seating chart of the remaining 19 jurors, and they took turns crossing people out until just seven were left, six jurors and one alternate.

Somebody crossed me out, and I was free to come back to work. The jury, I found out later, assigned 48 percent of the fault to Driver No. 3 and 52 percent to Driver No. 4. (786 words)