Service Means Citizenship: Part 4 of 6

[jchrisobrien]

The table is littered with notebooks, pencils, bottled drinks and two pots of coffee, long grown cold. Fourteen people sit around the table. No one is looking at anyone else. Eyes are alternatingly glassy, angry, resigned, or guarded. Backs are hunched, chins rest on the palms of hands. The soft tick of the second hand is the only sound. Eventually, someone reaches for their notebook, flips through a few pages, and speaks. "Let's look at page b10 again."
By the end of the first day of deliberations, the room was split roughly 10-4 over the questions of the doctor's negligence. In order to answer the question either way, a 12-2 has to pass, one way or the other. By the midpoint of the second day, we put the question forward to the judge whether we needed a 12-2 decision, and what would happen if we couldn't reach it. We were already entertaining the idea of a hung jury. The judge's was swift: 12-2 is required, and you need to go back until you can reach it.
There were no real sides in the deliberation room. There was no objective right or wrong, just a mountain of evidence that we sifted through over and over, trying to see if the evidence favored one side or the other. In a ideal world, both sides would point out different interpretations of the evidence, and eventually one side of the other would see the wisdom of the other party’s logic. Our situations was more complex. We didn't devolve to name calling or personal attacks. But there was shouting and sniping a plenty. Exasperated sighs, hands thrown in the air, people trembling to hold on to their self control as they bore the brunt of the room's ire. Each time we drew back before things exploded. We retreated to our taut silences.
The room was our world for two days running. Over time people grew more friendly, revealed a little more about themselves. Perceptions changed as personalities began to present. Life experiences were drawn on, and over time biases as well. Some thought that an experienced doctor's couldn't be negligent. Others thought that we didn't have the expertise to judge a doctor, since we weren't one. Evidence was stubbornly interpreted in ways that we couldn't agree on. Two days ended, and we approached the third with no end of the deadlock in sight. And we still had the second part of the question to answer, and damages to assign after that. It didn't look good.

Comments

[debbie.livejournal.com]

good story!