Jury love

It was a notable day at Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, those of you following our boy "Clark Rockefeller" in the national news. After 9 days of evidence and nearly 5 days of deliberating, the jury came back today and gave the man of many aliases a new moniker:

"Mr. Guilty of Kidnapping and Assault"

Suffolk Superior is where I served on a 9-day medical malpractice trial recently and, frankly, I assume vicarious connection to this case because:

1) My trial started May 26, the same day as the Rockefeller jury empanelment.

As I arrived at the courthouse that morning, Court TV and a half-dozen other cameras greeted me. Once in the courtroom, the Honorable Regina L. Quinlan explained that we jurors were empanelled several days early, because the court knew they'd need an extra-large jury pool on account of overwhelming pre-trial publicity. So Clark, in a roundabout way, determined the case I helped decide.

2) The court officer who directed my trial's empanelment was the full-time court officer on Rockefeller. Which means she led the defendant into court every day. So all photos of Clark include her mug.

3) No less than 15 friends, when hearing I was on a jury, asked if I was a juror in this case.

Almost felt like it, actually.

Our real trial wrapped on Thursday, June 4 with the unanimous acquittal of 3 doctors and a hospital of negligence and wrongful death. While the verdict itself was not joyful, I was so busy rejoicing that I could make my Friday-morning flight to Minnesota that I forgot to assess the experience in this space.

I'll start by answering the burning questions that all readers of this blog, no doubt, are still itching to know:

Did I find the love of my life during this trial?

Or, at least, did my jury service lead to a sweet hook-up?

Or, at the very least, a coffee date?

Of course not. I wouldn't have waited 8 days to write about it. My 5 male counterparts, not to mention attorneys and defendants, were all one or several of the following: married, seriously attached, 25 years my senior, or totally not my type.

Jury service was well-worth it, though. I don't say that just because the Commonwealth is paying me $350 and Judge Quinlan (who, herself, rocked the house) sent a personal thank you for giving my time to her courtroom.

1) I can tell you what you want to know about propofol, obstructive sleep apnea, how to decipher healthcare shorthand, what an asystole is, and how to manually luxate a tooth.

2) I can say that anyone agreeing to serve as an expert anasthesia witness for the plaintiff should only write a quirky blog under a pseudonym. The defense team will most certainly mock ... and did.

3) Trial attorneys work very, very hard and have to think even harder. Any exhaustion I felt during service was on their behalf.

4) Our jury was made up of uniformly rational folks. Deliberations were smooth and focused. It is possible.

5) As we left the courthouse for the last time, I struck up with a fellow (female) juror who also is a Writer-at-Heart-Working-in-Finance. Much like myself. We exchanged blog addresses. I think we might be friends.

Good stuff, all.