The three-week sequestration of the six female jurors who eventually acquitted George Zimmerman cost Florida taxpayers a whopping $33,000, according to information released by the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office Wednesday.
The jury was sequestered for three weeks from June 21 until the verdict was announced this past Saturday. During that time, deputies with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office monitored their jurors’ television and Internet usage, phone calls and reading materials to make sure they weren’t exposed to information about the trial.
Robert Hirschhorn, a consultant who helped Zimmerman’s defense team pick the jury members, said $33,000 in sequestration fees seemed didn’t seem excessive to him. It was a “small price to pay for the enormity of the task the jurors undertook,” he told USA TODAY.
“They left their husbands, their children, their friends, their jobs, they were essentially ‘imprisoned’ for three weeks,” he added.
The release of the numbers may have caused some to wonder whether the jurors were getting too comfortable at the taxpayer’ expense, however – even if it was just one-tenth of the estimated $320,000 the county spent on the entire trial.
Here are the top 10 perks that the Zimmerman trial jurors received while being sequestered.
1) 22 nights at a local Marriott hotel
The juror’s hotel stay at the Marriott in Lake Mary, Fla. was approximately $1,000 per day and each juror got her own room.
2) Use of the hotel’s fitness center
Who could go three weeks without working out?
3) Complimentary meals
Seminole County reportedly spent approximately $375 daily to feed the six jurors. Breakfasts and dinners were provided at the hotel, but the women also dined out at a local Outback Steakhouse and several other area restaurants. Lunches were typically brought to the courthouse from various area restaurants, and the group went out to lunch several times throughout the trial as well.
4) Bowling
The jurors enjoyed going on occasional ‘excursions’ in the evenings and on the weekends, including to the local bowling alley.
5) A fireworks display
No one likes jury duty, let alone on the Fourth of July.
6) Trips to the movies
Fortunately, the jurors didn’t have to miss the releases of “The Lone Ranger” and “World War Z.”
7) A trip to Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum
Jurors spent a day in St. Augustine, where they visited the museum and went out to dinner.
8) Mani-Pedis
As one Florida attorney Randy Reep put it, “It certainly seems reasonable to me that a woman would desire a bit of personal grooming over 22 days.”
9) Weekend visits from family and friends
Visitors had to sign an agreement that they would not discuss the trial.
10) Visits from members of the religious community
Neither living pope was one of them, however.
Not too bad for having been ‘imprisoned’ for three weeks!
