In this case…real-life legal stories

FIRST-PERSON….I got to the courthouse for jury duty. I brought my breast pump with me and sat in the big huge jury room. I think the third time they called names they called mine, and we all went to the courtroom. I didn’t want to talk to the entire courtroom and all the jurors about the fact that I was nursing, so I approached the bench. And then all the attorneys, who are all men, came up too. I said, you know, I have a four-month old child at home that I’m nursing and I need to pump regularly. The judge just said, the court will take frequent breaks. I said okay and marched myself back into the jury pool. I didn’t ask any questions. I probably should have pushed it more, but at that time I was feeling kind of self-conscious because I was surrounded by all those men and the court reporter was up there typing every word I said.

I ended up getting picked for the jury. I explained to the other jurors that I needed to pump every two hours or so. The jury room had two bathrooms, a men’s and a women’s. So everyone agreed that they would use the women’s bathroom and I could use the men’s bathroom to pump. We were given 20-minute breaks, which wasn’t enough. But I went and pumped. The bailiff would bring me my bag, I’d put my little bottles of breast milk in it, and he would run it back to a main refrigerator area.

It was gross pumping in the men’s room. But the thing that was more of a problem for me was that in between the breaks all the jurors were sitting out there bonding, talking to each other, getting to know each other. So that when it came time to deliberate, they all kind of knew each other. Whereas me, as soon as I got in the jury room, I was going in and pumping, the bailiff was bringing me my bag. When I came out I didn’t even have a chance to get anything to drink. I never got a break.

I was really interested in making sure we came to the right decision. But I didn’t really know any of the other jurors, I hadn’t had a chance to develop a relationship with any of them. If I had had that extra time, I think I wouldn’t have felt like I was being so confrontational in saying, come on, let’s really look at all this stuff, figure out what happened. I didn’t have the jury experience I wanted. I’d like to redo it and really be able to really sit down and talk to the jurors.

I would never want any other nursing mom, pumping and trying to maintain a nursing relationship with their child, to have to go through what I did. I was also coming down with mastitis, which I couldn’t take care of during jury duty. I had a fever, I wasn’t producing much milk. It was awful. It really was. But now they’ve exempted nursing moms. I knew a Virginia state delegate through my husband’s work, and I mentioned to him that an exemption might be useful legislation. And he proposed it. I am the one that actually caused the legislation to be introduced, and it was eventually passed and signed into law.

I effected a change. Women who are nursing are not going to have to go through a jury experience like that. I made a difference. It feels really good.

Pam lives in northern Virginia and served jury duty in Fairfax County. For more information about jury duty while breastfeeding, see Family Friendly Jury Duty.