Jury Duty Lessons

I received my jury summons late last year. I marked it on my calendar, alerted my colleagues and assured them– I never get picked, I’ll see you later that afternoon.?

I got picked.?

For the better part of seven days, I served in DC’s Superior Court with seven other jurors on a medical malpractice trial involving a Nurse Practitioner and the outpatient clinic that employed her. I often arrived at the courthouse early, not only to avoid the long security lines but to plant myself in the court’s basement cafe and take Zoom calls, catch up on email and prepare myself for the day ahead. I was proud to model for my team that I take my civic duty seriously. What I was less proud of was how under-prepared I was for the difficult work that jury duty requires of us.???????

There's no disengaging in a courtroom. You are bearing direct witness to those who have allegedly been harmed and to those who have allegedly done the harming. And when the stories don't add up, is someone lying? Is it in the interpretation of facts? Can multiple truths exist along a continuum? I have often said, when it comes to feedback in the workplace, that what is true and what is The Truth are different things– our identity, lived experience, upbringing, access to education and more all influence how we see and experience the world. This doesn’t mean your perspective is not true for you, and mine true for me. The role of the jury, however, is to take all those “trues” and find a unanimous Truth that can be delivered as a decision, as a verdict.?

I watched a witness, the defendant, testify for multiple hours over the course of two days. I felt enormous compassion for them as a human. I also thought they were, at times, obfuscating the truth. I also thought it sounded like they had been ”in over their head” in the Nurse Practitioner role, due to inadequate training (for what this clinic hired them for), lack of appropriate supervision, and a corporate culture that seemed to value expediency over quality. I also understood the proceedings within the larger context in which they took place– that is to say in our irrationally damaged world with legacies of injustice, racism, violence, oppression and more.

Sitting in the jury box made me think of integrity and how we integrate that concept into our daily lives-- in our families, our communities and our work. And the process of deliberation definitely brought the theme of integrity into focus. The defendant had been previously found liable; we were determining the vicarious liability of the clinic and any damages owed. The damages owed were for emotional pain and distress, and there is no formula. What's someone's pain worth? How do we determine who is owed what for an elective procedure that comes with known risk (even when the standard of care is met)? And what is informed consent in a context with limited choice, knowledge and agency?

Our job as jurors is to be impartial and rely on the evidence, but what a complicated mandate that is, to say the least. We soak up so much in our day-to-day lives that might ultimately inform our perspective on a case or incident; to an extent, that’s unavoidable, but when we’re on a jury, we have to force our brain into a space of: "This is the evidence that was presented, and that's what I'm basing my decision on."?

I’m not proud to say it, but I felt impatient at times as I wondered whether we were all holding ourselves to these same limitations. As a leader, to be in such a consequential situation without the formal authority to which I have become accustomed, I was feeling the pull of personal integrity, but also leaning into the deliberation and collaboration part of the role. How do we gauge “movability”? How do we influence people who are essentially strangers? How do we quickly assess the decision-making muscle of those around us, with whom we are expected to quickly reach a unanimous and evidence-based conclusion????

Ultimately, we delivered a verdict and, while I wouldn’t say that our decision felt great, I must admit that it was a relief to be done.?

Then again, I’m not done, really, because I find myself thinking about all of the above and more, and imagine that I will for a while. In the end, jury duty was a powerful and uncomfortable experience, but so is democracy. And it’s worth the work, the effort and the energy.