Hong’s Cave

For the past three days (Monday through Wednesday), I’ve been reporting for my first jury duty at the Superior Court of Santa Clara. Well, it was just for jury selection for a civil case regarding a disability insurance claim dispute, but it was quite an interesting and, I must say, educational experience.

The jury selection was over even before they had a chance to ask me questions (yeah, and that took three days!), but from the questions asked by both the judge and the counsels from both sides, it was clear what they were looking for in a juror. The most important question seems to be if a potential juror can be fair to both parties and just rely on the evidence and witnesses presented during the trial.

For example, there were some ailments involved with the case and the court wanted the prospective jurors to disregard whatever research they have done or knowledge they acquired before this trial and only rely on the material and testimonial evidence presented during the trial.

That made me wonder what this court system is trying to do. The system is, without a doubt, based on a very idealistic perspective. However, I don’t think it is that naive to think that a person can completely disregard whatever they had for the trial. That’s just not possible. What the system seems to be doing is to be reasonable and asking that one try to be one’s very best and to be fair as much as one can (this reminds me of the Army motto). It seems this system recognizes the imperfection of being a human, but realizes that there probably isn’t any better way and have trust in its people.

Frankly, at first when I was summoned for the jury duty, the first thing I thought of was how I can get out of it. I postponed it once, partly due to my house purchase and the move and partly due to the schedule at work. I’ve asked around for “advices” on how to get dismissed.

But after the whole jury selection process started, a part of me actually began to hope to be selected as a juror (although a possible 6-week trial seemed a bit too long)… That I wanted to see if I can be the best that I can be. :p I mean, this wasn’t really due to any patriotism that I have for the U.S. of A. This was more about being a part of a system that puts its trust on people and making a contribution.

Yeah… It’s not perfect, and I do have a bit of a problem deciding the reward amount for the punitive damages, but still the system is trusting its members to decide what the facts are from the evidence with the guidance of the judge with the knowledge of the law. It’s asking, basically, for each member to be the best person (in part, at least, on the subject of “fairness”) and be active (that is, make a decision). Even the mostly sarcastic person like me can be a sucker for human idealism.

One might argue this jury duty or the ballot participation of individual doesn’t make much impact. Maybe not an immediate one. But I do believe that by participating one changes oneself, at least. And this will determine more firmly who we are, and will eventually influence those around us. However passive some of these processes may look, we are making a change (or a seed of changes) by participating.

Anyway, this experience made me think a bit. I sincerely hope that one day I would get selected and serve as a juror, and do my best.