Jury Duty

This trial occurred years ago, when I was a mid-career teacher. Based on notes I made then, names and details changed.

I dream of long strips of fetal tracings, showing good variability, accelerations, decelerations, establishing a baseline fetal heart rate. When do the decels become concerning? When is the fetal monitor record reassuring, when non-reassuring? When does it become ominous? Everyone agrees that until the last 15 minutes of labor we had a happy baby. Everyone agrees that Mom was tired but pushing well. In her first delivery, she sustained a fourth-degree tear. We have seen excruciating diagrams showing how a 4th degree tear goes down into the rectum.

City & County Building Hall

The City & County halls of granite and marble, dark oak doors and wall sconces are vast, echoing and without comfort. People here inhabit a world different than mine; jackets and ties, lady lawyers in tailored suits, panty hose and heels. The professional palette runs from gray and navy to black and tan. Court begins at 8:30 so I get to sleep in. Lunch is 12:00 – 1:30, in contrast to the 20 minutes I often have at school. When we start late, I grade papers.

During the trial, the jury is passive. You may not read about, discuss, research anything. You may not raise your hand and ask a question. You cannot even talk about the case with your fellow jurors. You are to draw all your conclusions from the evidence presented in court and only that evidence. All input, as we say in education. No output. This is a personal injury case, the doctor accused of negligent behavior.

The doctor went to Ivy League med school, has delivered over a thousand babies. When Michael was born, the doctor was having back problems and getting ready to marry Laura, a nurse at the same hospital. Laura was not on duty for this delivery. We are to disregard the plaintiff’s bringing up Laura, the doctor’s back, for they have nothing to do with this case. We are to disregard the defense’s discussion of the parents’ desire to avoid another 4th degree tear, for it has nothing to do with this case.

It is a civil trial, requires a jury of six. They selected nine, so that if something happens to one or more of us, the trial can continue. The judge decides whether he sends three home or allows all nine to deliberate. He’s said nothing to us about it. We had enough courtroom experience among ourselves to figure that out, exchanged phone numbers in case some get booted. No one wants to be left out at the end.

We are six women and three men. One of the men and several of the women are retired. Spending time with the older women is salutary for my tendency to dismiss little old ladies, even as I become one myself. One raised seven children, bought and restored an old house, used a textbook to rewire it herself. One of the working women administers research and development for a university, spends breaks on her cell, rearranging meetings. It’s an intelligent jury, not likely to swallow the lawyers’ taking things out of context, asking misleading, convoluted questions, highlighting one section of evidence without regard for another that casts doubt on the first. This goes for both sides.

Much of the trial is tedious. Lawyers put up the same strip of fetal monitor tracing, the same delivery note, the same pathology report, over and again, the plaintiff’s experts saying, “this is clearly ominous,” and the defense’s experts protesting, “this is reassuring, up until the last two minutes, when the doctor cut the episiotomy and delivered the baby.”

It was hard when the nurses came, one of whom thought the fetal monitor looked concerning in the last minutes and asked that a pulse ox be placed. Her eyes filled with tears at each question, though she never wept.

It was also hard when Mom took the stand. She has been in court every day and has cried every day, cried through her testimony. The worst was when they brought Michael, now four. He looks normal, big blue eyes, an adorable face. Then you see he cannot focus, cannot control his head and limbs. He was born with a tight nuchal cord around his neck, blue, not breathing—the baby everyone thought was fine so shortly before. He will never walk, never feed himself, never speak in complete sentences, has a shortened life expectancy.

I was one of the three sent home. A fellow juror called me hours later. They acquitted the doctor as I thought they would. The parents of this beautiful, damaged child wanted someone to blame, for how else to understand what happened? They wanted someone to shoulder their child’s expensive care, to heal their grief. Peripheral though my role was, fetal heart rate tracings troubled my sleep for weeks. Like the aftermath of much trauma, the dreams tapered to a trickle, then petrified to patterns on dry riverbeds lost in my memory.