Word: juror
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...Kemner sessions verge on terminal boredom. Some jurors take notes as the trial drones on. But all too often eyes glaze over. Yawns are frequent. One alternate juror appears to doze from time to time. "They do well to stay awake," concedes the plaintiffs' attorney, Rex Carr. "This isn't the kind of stuff that keeps you on the edge of your seat." The numbing routine continues five days a week, six hours a day, with an hour out for lunch and brief midmorning and midafternoon breaks, plus a Christmas-New Year recess and a two-week summer vacation...
...glassy-eyed jurors are paid a piddling $5 a day, plus a miserly 10 cents a mile for getting to and from court. Most continue to draw salaries from their pretrial employers. Four jurors have been excused for illness or injury since the trial began. The original juror panel of 18 is now down to 14, including two alternates. If the number falls below twelve, a mistrial is likely. Carr charges Monsanto with scheming to force one through a strategy of "delay, delay and more delay...
Fear shrouded the proceedings, and jurors' names were kept secret. Even so, a juror was excused two weeks ago after revealing that a relative had received a threatening phone call. Earlier, one defendant was found in a trash bag in Brooklyn, shot and bludgeoned to death. Another was paralyzed by gunfire on a crowded Greenwich Village street...
When the testimony ended, Judge Peter Leisure sent the jury out with 155 pages of instructions, containing 61 questions of fact for them to resolve. Juror Margaret Lilienfeld, a retired foundation aide, admitted that at first "there was some confusion." In fact, Juror Miriam Sanchez was so confused by the instructions that she reportedly told news people after the verdict that she had wanted an award of $300 million but had agreed to $1 because she believed Judge Leisure could amend it upward to a proper sum. She was mistaken: though judges often lower damages if they are not warranted...
...angered jurors decided to punish the school: "You know how your mama used to whip you down?" explained Jury Forewoman Melanie Mims. And Juror Darryell Howell added, of the university's treatment of Kemp, "We don't want this to ever happen again...