Jury Duty

I had Jury Duty last week and was a little apprehensive as I had never done that before. The whole process was pretty interesting and there were several things that I didn’t expect at all. First, I didn’t realize that they called 65 people for a single 12 Juror case. Hence, there was a over 4 hours spent just on the Jury selection. I was number 65, so I didn’t even get any questions asked of me, but rather listened while they asked tons of questions to the first 27. (We were issued numbers when we began).

Let’s backtrack a little bit. The form I had said that I must be in the specified room by 8am sharp. I show up 20 min. early and realize that the lobby doesn’t even open until 8 am. The entrance is tiny and as time passes it fills to the point of bursting with the over 350 called Jurors for the various cases that day. 8:05 rolls around and the crack security squad starts to let us through. I don’t get to the room until 8:20 and when I apologize for being late, she says we don’t even need you until 9am.

Now I am in a room with my 65 peers, so I start sizing up the competition. We were asked to wear respectful clothing for the court. My mind said, button up long sleeve shirt and slacks or Dockers, probably a belt, and some dress shoes. Apparently my “peers” thought it meant cut-off jeans, tank tops, beer logo shirts, and general construction attire. I didn’t realize they still made clothing with burlap. So I sit and look and try to think about who the Lawyers would want and they start up a movie. At a little after 9 am they give us some instruction and hand us a number as we head to the courtroom.

Inside the courtroom we have the Judge, lawyers, court reporter, and the accused. We all sit and then the fun begins. The Judge tells us this is going to be a three day trial at most, so we know what we are dealing with. He then goes through some questions to eliminate any people with conflicts of interest. He starts with anyone that has ever been in a court case and we went one by one hearing the details. This seems benign but this really means that anyone that had ever been accused of a crime had to announce it to this entire group. He further asked for the outcomes in each case and how they felt about it. I’ll highlight a few here…and remember this is just out of the first 27 people.

We had 4 DUIs. We had 1 meth user. We had a person convicted of selling meth, assault and battery, resisting arrest, ….and he stopped there. We had 1 child rape victim. That was very hard to hear about.

We had a woman who said that someone in public mistakenly thought her boyfriend was beating the crap out of her and called the police who then took him to jail. She spent 2 weeks fighting with the prosecutors, who happen to be lying about everything, before she got him out. Oh….and she also just had a cancer tumor removed from her stomach two days before…and she was bawling the whole time…and she didn’t like looking at the lawyers because it was too tough..and she was quickly dismissed. I was sad to see her barely-cover-the–ass-cheek, baby-doll, trailer trash dress leave the courtroom but was surprised at how quickly she recovered, emotionally that is, when the Judge dismissed her.

We had a woman who said “I guess a wife can’t slap her husband across the face anymore without going to jail in this state”. Apparently the “Lying Prosecutors” made her husband change his story and got her 180 days in the slammer. After some other questions, she also had been charged for battery 2 other times, convicted of drug use, convicted of lying about her identity, and I honestly can’t remember the rest.

We had 1 guy charged with assault, "bar fight" he stated proudly. That is all I can remember off the top of my head, but it seemed ridiculous for the number of people questioned, to have this many thugs.

They went through tons of other questions, most about racism, because the woman on trial was originally from Iran, which was all very boring and cliché. Then the Judge asked if there were any special circumstances that would make it impossible for anyone to serve. Almost EVERY hand went up! This is still the first group of 27, as some were dismissed they pulled others into that group. Then it started again.

One woman said she wasn’t good at making decisions, then another woman, hearing this genius said, “Ya, I have a hard time making decisions too.” Several people said that work was too hard to get out of, the best of which was a bowling pro shop where the woman said “If I am not there, no one will be able to do the books…unless I can get someone to cover me.” First, it's bowling. Second, isn’t it obvious, that someone is going to have to cover you in EVERY job? Two other woman said they didn’t like being in court rooms because of previous cases, made them nervous. Then the two people who spoke other languages said they couldn’t understand English. After some questioning we found that one has been working as an RN for 15 years and has been a citizen just as long. She also took her citizenship test in English, 15 years ago. By the way, she was chit-chatting with everyone at the break, funny. The other guy had a similar story, but had only been here 8 years, but also took his test in English, 8 years ago. Frickin’ liars! And the coup de grace, a guy said that he doesn't like to get up before around 2pm, he is a big sleeper, so he wouldn't be very sharp anytime before that. He actually wasted court time giving this as a reason he couldn't serve.

Those are a few of the highlights but my point is, the person on trial was amongst her peers as they seemed to all be lying, whining, mountain trash, thugs. Yup, she was guilty, I could tell by lookin’ at her. If these were our average citizens, then I weep for their children and our court system. Amazingly sad.