My wife was recently in the employ of the Sacramento county jury pool. She was chosen as an alternate juror, and sat through several weeks of trial. she was then chosen as a juror to replace one that had fallen asleep through the trial, and then the deliberations process. The trial ended yesterday, and I fianlly learned what it was all about.
A state Department of Justice employee, latino, had claimed discrimination and harrassment because he had not recieved promotion commensurate with his seniority. He also claimed retaliation for helping other people whom he thought had also been discriminated against. The jury would not support his racial claims, and were deadlocked on the retaliation, but after recieving instructions from the judge, they found evidence enough to award. Then the money people took over and found around 500,000.00 was the number.
She has relayed to me that there was a lot of sympathy for this officer and that some was unwarranted. The jury was comprised of many state workers, retired and active, as well as other so called ethnic minority.
Apparently there was a lot of evidence that the officer had a chip on his shoulder with many of his supervisors, and that it was not entirely the defendants doing. In any case, unless there is an appeal, the state taxpayer will be shelling out around a half million to this officer and his attorney. The defense were state employees, 2 practicing and two legal help, and were apparently not as well organized or sharp as the one attorney the palintiff had with one helper. We hire the handicapped at the state
