Jury Duty

If you think being a victim of violent crime is traumatic, try being a juror--it's the next best thing to being there.

As America becomes more violent, jury duty is turning into a civic nightmare. Jurors are increasingly barraged with grisly exhibits, lawyerly acrimony, and tormenting testimony meant to make them experience a crime as the victim did. Worse, they may be sequestered from what they need most--the emotional support of family and friends.

Jurors find themselves struggling with head- and stomach- aches, sleeplessness, nightmares, or just plain emotional overload, according to Karil Klingbeil, M.S.W., of the University of Washington. She has created a debriefing process to ease jurors back to everyday life.

"Increasingly we ask jurors to see things they haven't had to in the past: videos showing the aftermath of a crime scene or the crime itself," she says.

Exhibit A is the gruesome trial of Gerald and Julie Sousa, accused of scalding their baby to death. Seattle jurors were asked to touch the baby's clothing and hear testimony on how the baby's skin came off in the father's hands.

Klingbeil finds that the best time for debriefing is about three days after the trial and it lasts two hours. Led by two social workers, jurors discuss emotions that were aroused and events that triggered them to give jurors credence to their feelings and a sense of closure. They also brainstorm about coping skills.

Though modeled after methods used for natural disaster victims, the jury debriefing process faces a bigger challenge, as people recover more quickly from random earthly disaster than from purposeful human evil.

It all gives new meaning to trial by jury.

PHOTO: Testimony presented at trials like that of Jeffrey Dahmer can traumatize jurors.