Jury duty rocks — mostly

This is Juror Appreciation week in Alaska.

Over the years I have been asked, “We still have jurors?”

“Why do we still have jury duty when everything else in this world seems to be figured out by computer, by horoscope, or worse, by 10-second sound bites?”

For 31 years I’ve been a trial court judge in Alaska, in Anchorage and in the Mat-Su Valley. Why haven’t they gotten rid of me too by now, along with the jury system?

I still remember each of my first jury trials as an attorney and as a judge. I remember the first ones even better than my more recent ones. This confession underscores an important reason why we have juries — we need “fresh legs” — open minds and eager concerned citizens ready to listen, listen and then listen some more to the testimony under oath about everything under the sun, from being a crime victim to suing over a civil contract that hasn’t been fulfilled properly. Even the nightmare trial that most jurors fear, the one where they have to sit for weeks to determine whether someone deserves money for suffering they shouldn’t have had to go through, or decide whether someone shouldn’t have to pay money for suffering they didn’t cause or that didn’t happen, isn’t really a nightmare. It’s real life. It’s something that happens — personal injury — and sometimes we need several people (jurors) to determine whether it really happened and, if so, how much to pay for it. Jurors even have to listen patiently to the friends of alleged criminals on trial trying to explain what their friend was doing in a certain place at a certain time and why.

Alaskans are good about being jurors. I have never had a single one not appear to finish a trial because they went to a far away state for a horse race instead. I have had jurors in tears apologizing that they would not being able to deliberate, because a crisis came up in their family, or their employer ceased to be understanding, or because they found the entire situation presented at the trial just too emotional.

Sure, lots of people have asked to be excused from jury duty. I was told by a senior judge, when I first took the bench, that at the beginning of every jury selection I should discourage people from seeking to be excused by first calling up the most obvious person in the jury pool who likely would want to be excused, such as an 8-months-pregnant young woman, and in front of the whole group tell her that her excuse wasn’t good enough — that we all had to serve. That’s way too mean, I thought, as well as unnecessary. And I say this having sat on the bench at 8 months pregnant myself. Some people need to be excused. Some citizens we call for jury duty truly are not at a point in their life where they can spare even a few days to listen to other people’s problems. But most can. And most will. With the judge being kind and persuasive, most will agree to give a little of their time in order to have our court decisions be fair and reflect “We, The People.”

In Alaska, our jury lists are composed of adults who apply for the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. During jury selections, judges sometimes jokingly say that in return it isn’t too much to ask that people give us jury service for that gift from the government. But it’s not a fair exchange. We the Court System, and you, the People of Alaska, get way more than $1,200, or whatever the PFD amount is, when citizens serve on jury duty.

You, the people, get common sense and objectivity. You get rich and poor judging what testimony can be believed and what can’t. You get a “reasonable person’s eyes” to view what went wrong, or what didn’t. And most of al, you get an enriched society. Jurors learn that the presumption of innocence exists for a reason, that the government’s power usually is well-used and admirably exercised, and that even a seemingly unimportant person can have an important point to make in court. Jurors come away finding that justice most certainly can be done when a group of people collectively get to call the shots.

And what do our jurors get? Other than $25 a day after the first day, and maybe during deliberations a free lunch, some might say, “Not much.” That’s not what most jurors say, though. Jurors get to see up close and personal a real life drama playing out. Jurors see the poignancy, and sometimes the stupidity, of the problems we can’t seem to solve. Jurors get the feeling of usefulness from having done their part to try to solve them. Jurors even get a new group of friends.

The worst part about jury duty, the very worst, is the waiting. If someone ran an airline this way, the company would have gone out of business decades ago. The court system is guilty of not being able to predict which trials really will actually go before a jury, even when at 5 p.m. on Tuesday the lawyers and parties clamor that they are perfectly ready to start trial on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. Over the years, I’ve decided its human nature that we can’t change, but it’s not the court system that needs fixing. Humans have a way of not deciding uncomfortable things until they have to decide them. I often tell jurors the most important service they perform is showing up in our parking lot and leaving their cars parked there for all to see while they gather in the jury room and wait and wait and wait to be called. When the lawyers and litigants realize, “Wow! All these people are here for my trial,” somehow this realization helps them determine that they can solve their problems on their own after all.

They sometimes decide it’s too embarrassing or time consuming to explain their situation to a bunch of strangers. Thus it becomes thanks, but no thanks, for that offer of a jury trial. I’ll take that settlement.

A jury summons usually is about as welcome as a reminder card for a dentist appointment. But the results are the same after you go. You know you don’t have to go back for a year, and those clean teeth feel so good. When jurors feel they helped the justice system clean up an important case that the system couldn’t clean up without them, that’s something to be proud of.

Jurors are more valuable than their pay, that’s for sure. To all of you who have served, thank you for bringing your open minds and your good hearts.

Judge Beverly Cutler is a Palmer Superior Court judge.