Waiting for a verdict.

In this episode of The Velvet Hammer, Karen Koehler opens up about the emotional weight that follows the end of a trial. From the anxiety of waiting for a jury verdict to the personal sacrifices made during trial, Karen shares the challenges of balancing her role as a trial attorney and a mother. Tune in for an intimate look at what it’s like to wait for justice. 

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Transcript

So once trial is over, and in this case, it was over on Monday at about 330. Comes, in my opinion, the worst part. It's always the worst part for me, because when you're in trial, you're doing stuff. I don't want to say you're in control, but you are in control of what you do, how you respond, what you produce, how you interact, how you communicate, how you behave, how hard you try.

But then suddenly, the trial is over, and the jury leaves,

goes to their room, and you're kicked out the door. What does that feel like? What does that feel like for a trial lawyer? First of all, you know, your clients are suffering way worse than you are. This is their life in this case. This was their child's life. And they want to see justice done by the state,

who has been very disrespectful. And so the only way to get the state to acknowledge responsibility is by trying this case to verdict, seeing what a jury has to say.

So finish that process.

And now we gotta wait.

Well,

answer the client's questions, try to reassure the client, try to make sure that they're okay. Team takes over with that. To a certain extent, everybody's all hands on deck, trying to make sure everyone's okay. But the clients, they know that there's nothing we can help them with, because we're just all in the same position of waiting.

So this is what happens for me

on September

of 2024. When the dairy leaves Monday,

I walk out that door, I walk up the hill, I get taken home,

and I do not feel a sense of relief.

There is an additional issue for me, because right before closing started, I got a text because Noelle, my youngest daughter, was having a baby, had been in the hospital since Saturday, and in fact, had the baby Monday morning as I was getting ready to stand up and deliver. Closing.

I've talked to you before about mother guilt, parental guilt. The sacrifices that have to be made for clients, and especially when you're in trial. And even though my kids are understanding that this is a seminal life event that I was not there for, now, maybe they didn't want me to be there, but at least I could have been by them.

I could have been on that side of the United States, Boston versus here in Seattle, in case something happened, in case they needed me. I was not able to be there for them. That really bites.

So I shut that out, get closing done, come down, start looking at,

as soon as I walk in the door, uh, baby pictures. Because I've asked them to just not give them to me until I can give them my full attention, because I want to see this baby for the first time without having to glance, and then focus on a trial.

What a beautiful, joyful experience that is to welcome a new baby.

The other implication, uh, of that is that I just really haven't slept since Saturday. Um, because I'm worried about Noelle. Thinking about her and just waiting for updates, and then just doing my best to, like, not be anxious for her and having closing. Interesting, right? Closing. Closing worried me way less than Noelle having a baby.

I can't even. I mean, they're not even. They're not even on par, because I was so prepared for closing. But none of that anxiety and worry just dissipates after closing is finished. And I walk out that courtroom, and it's in the jury's hand. It actually compounds, because closing, again, I had control over.

And the jury, we do not.

So I'm able to spend some time with Noelle,

who facetimes me so I can see this baby. What an angel. And, uh,

it's just different that way.

So go to bed eventually, because the jury goes home after 30 minutes. I bet maybe they selected a presiding juror and not much else, and wake up the next morning at three as in am, and then at five as an am, and then just give up.

Work some, um, recover some.

Take out the garbage, do the things that you have to do. Oh, no groceries. So I go to the grocery store. Uh, like seven in the morning. Maybe it was six because they didn't have any groceries because whole foods and Amazon have all those deliveries. It was really weird.

There was no produce.

And all the time I'm thinking, okay, the jury's not there yet. The jury's not there yet. I don't have to start worrying. Don't. 09:00 comes. I know they're there. I start doing work meetings. People need to see me. They haven't seen me for a while. Meet with our office, uh, manager.

Not, uh, office manager, our director of administration. And

now the court is saying, do you want to do Zoom or in person? And the way that this courtroom works is it's one or the other. So if the plaintiff says, we're going to come in person, then it's going to be done in person. If the plaintiff says no, will appear by Zoom, then it will not be done in person.

And that being going down to the court.

So we chose in person. We want to be in person. We got now 20 minutes to get to the courthouse from wherever we are. Um, Seattle traffic, and just wherever we all are is not going to make that happen. So I asked for grace period. Judge gives us ten more minutes.

We got 30 minutes to get down to the courthouse, park, walk, get through security, and take the elevator up to the 7th floor. That won't work. I know. I'm going to have to take an uber. Could still do that in my head. I'm trying to figure out how exactly I'm going to get there in 30 minutes, um, guaranteed.

Because if there's no traffic, no problem. I can get there in 20 minutes. Slightest amount of traffic, no big problem. Go back to work, eat some. I know this sounds gross, but I'm a vegetarian. I had made some, um, delicious tofu earlier. Ate some tofu cold. Ugh. This is trial life.

And, uh, around 01:00

decide that. Hmm. I should just head over there. It is beautiful out. I am still groggy. If I go for a jog, there's a good chance I could tip over. So I think, why don't I just go for a walk? It's only 3 miles down, 3 miles back, easy.

So go for a walk.

Get there, and it's. And I don't go right away. Get there, and I get there too early. Then I go to pike place market. Then I go look at the Seattle art museum, but it's closed. Basically hovering around the courthouse, just not wanting to go to the courthouse, because why would I want to go in there if I don't have to?

I still have 30 minutes to get there, according to the judge. And I'm talking to Mo, and I'm talking to Kristen, I'm talking to all these people as I'm walking that I need to check in with in Gemma anyway. So it's just my way of thinking. Well, we were supposed to be in trial until Wednesday of next week.

We finished a week and a half early. So I'm not overbooked, and I'm just going to walk down here and be here. Well, at 330, we get a message from the bailiff, Evans, saying that the jury's left for the day. Now, that whole thing brings up another whole baffling moment.

So we get on teams, even though I don't put on my screen, so I can just talk as if I'm on the phone. The whole team shows up, and we talk about, when is the last time you saw a jury go home before the end of a day when they didn't have a verdict?

And the answer was, I don't really think that ever happens. So then we talk. What are the options? Well, option a is that they just. They made a lot of progress, and they're not in a rush because trial was supposed to have ended next week, and they just, um, decided to just break early just because.

Second idea is, oh, well, maybe things are tense, and they just thought, well, let's take a break. Number three is, well, maybe they came up with a verdict, and they want to think about it overnight and tell us in the morning.

Those are our three scenarios that we think probably happen. It could be no big deal. It could be a big deal. We have no idea. We're just guessing, passing the time. That's what happens. When you're waiting for a verdict in your mind, you're going through all these scenarios, especially when you've tried as many cases as I have, trying to figure out what the jury's doing and then realizing that it's a fruitless exercise and trying to turn your mind off from that and focus it on something else.

I really normally do a good job of that, but here with Noelle having the baby and super focused on wanting to make sure I can get out of here, um, wanting to be there for the clients, uh, and all of that. Maybe I don't turn my brain off as well as I normally can, because normally I can pretty much turn it off and just, uh, have a grumbling tummy deep down because I've buried that anxiety so deep.

But here I'm just like. It kind of percolate. Plus, the staff and, uh, other attorneys working on the case keep calling and saying, have you heard anything yet?

Well, this morning, I get up at 525, which is so much better than getting up at three. And about 15 minutes later, I get a message from Mo, uh, text saying, did you sleep at all? Because I can't sleep. I can never sleep. Mo cannot sleep during a verdict.

He's hyper, he's anxious, he's awake. Our job is not nine to five. We worry about our clients all the time. So, uh, then I check, uh, well, I'm kind of, like, lying around, honestly. But I, uh, at one point, checked an email, and, uh, it comes from Steve Puzz, state attorney general, and he, uh, wanted to go back to Olympia.

He'd asked the court if he could have an hour and a half to get there in the case of a jury verdict, so he didn't have to keep living out of a hotel. And the judge said no, because they don't want the jury who's been there being paid $10 a day for the past three weeks to have to wait a minute longer than they have to once they've reached a verdict.

So he's staying in a hotel, probably grumpy as I'll get up, because they didn't come out with a verdict yesterday. Oh, there's another thing that we think, which I reject. And that is, well, the sooner that there's a verdict that's better for the defense, because the defense verdict doesn't take long to get.

That's easy. So he's probably thinking, oh, well, the verdict should have come in yesterday, but, you know, maybe it was complicated, but, um, it's gonna come in this morning because Steve is convinced he's not gonna lose. Maybe he won't. Maybe he will lose. But he has no doubt in his mind that he's gonna prevail in this case.

He is so certain and dogmatic about it that not only does he just do a trumpian closing. That was gross. But, uh, this morning, he sends me an email, and this is how it goes. Dear Karen, we are still here, duh, at the hotel. But, uh, I wanted to reach out to you and let you know that what happened to the, uh, Taylor family was just terrible.

It was a terrible thing. Please tell them how sorry we are that this happened to summer. It was just. Regardless of fault, it was just a horrible, uh, accident that should never have happened. We were so sorry for them. Okay. Now, if that had been the only thing that puzz had written to us, it would have been very well taken.

That's kind, that's compassionate, that's empathetic. That has no agenda. But it's buzz. He always has an agenda. So not only does it say, dear Karen, please tell your clients how much we care about what happened to them and how sad we are. And this is so, so awful. This is how he ends.

We just want to be really crystal clear with you that the state, um, has taken all offers off of the table. There is no offer left on the table. It is all over. And I'm thinking, he's such a jerk. The state didn't even offer $100,000 on this case.

They didn't even offer enough to pay the cost that it took for us to hire experts and litigate this case against the state for four years.

Of course we knew that the offer was off the table, you dolt. We just tried the case to verdict. We're just waiting for the verdict

now. I have spoken to attorneys who have settled cases after the jury has left before the verdict came in. I can't imagine doing that.

Maybe it's been a good thing. Sometimes I think there's some, there's been a couple cases where I wish that could have happened, where I knew that we were doomed. But for the most part, we don't bring a case that we think we're gonna lose. And the client has put their faith in the jury

anyway. Yeah.

We're so sorry. And by the way, screw you all. In one email, I send it to the team and there's a lot of, uh, negative, uh, response.

By now it's not even 08:00 it's still like around 730. So I decide, well, the jury doesn't come back until nine, so I'm gonna go to the office, pick up some stuff. I'm completely out of broccoli. I'm gonna go get some broccoli and a carrot, which I do. I buy, literally a, uh, head of broccoli and a carrot at Ken's market up the street and come home.

It is almost eight.

And then I settle down and realize I'm not settled down. And then I decide I'm going to tell you what it feels like to have a jury verdict waiting to be born

over and out of.