dental malpractice

yep, that's right. i was selected to be a juror for a dental malpractice trial and they didn't even try to get rid of me! i was quick to point out that my dad was a dentist and i had also worked in a dental and other doctor offices in the past. i knew there was no way they'd want me on their jury! well, i was wrong and that was the beginning of three and a half weeks of jury duty.

i doodled a lot in my notebook to stay awake, learned more than i could ever want to know about dental implants, made lots of friends in the other jurors, and listened to hours and hours of testimony from what seemed like an absurd amount of witnesses. speaking of witnesses, i decided that i need to become an 'expert' in something because one of the expert witnesses was paid twenty thousand dollars to testify for about an hour and a half!

during this time, i decided to go to new york for thanksgiving. the judge assured us the trial was coming to an end and would be over by thursday. I had a sunday night flight so i was feeling pretty good. until two surprise witnesses were called in and new evidence appeared out of thin air. closing arguments ended thursday afternoon which gave us only friday to deliberate if i was going to make my flight. no pressure. we almost didn't make it. we had a hung jury but after meeting with the judge and a little more deliberation, we came up with a verdict and presented it with just three minutes to spare!

everyone asks me if the dentist was innocent or guilty. that's how i thought it was going to work as well but actually, we were given a series of questions to answer and decided the punitive damages and percentage of responsibility for both the plaintiff and defendant. so really no one 'won' but the plaintiff did not come out with as much money as he wanted, which i was very happy about. half a million dollars for some teeth you didn't like does not seem fair to me, no sir.

i actually loved the experience. it was interesting to see how the whole process worked and our bailiff told us he had never seen a group of jurors get as long as well and have as much fun with each other as we did. i even got a thank you note in the mail from the judge just the other day. i'd love to do it again but hopefully next time i'll get something a little more exciting than dental malpractice. 

update: these pictures aren't that great but this is almost everyone from the jury. as you can tell, we took our deliberating very seriously...we brought treats and everything!  i loved these people! even if we were in the middle of the most stressful part of the three weeks...