This is the third time that I have been asked to show up for jury duty in my entire adult life. I don't think that is every 3 years unless I am a lot younger than I thought. They said today that people get asked every 3 years, or maybe they said you cannot be asked for at least another 3 years.
There is a lot of wasted time waiting for the jury selection but hey, they are not paying you for that time. This time, cell phones were allowed in the jury pool room as was food and drink. BIG SIGNS as you enter the court house saying "NO FOOD NO DRINKS NO CELL PHONES" but every time the jury entered the security area the guards waved us through and we could have drink, food, and cell phones. That was a change since the last time I served.
This time the court officer said at about 10am that there would be a jury trial today and that low numbers would probably be chosen. I randomly had been given number 5, so I figured I would be one of the 7 members. We entered the court room at 11am, went through the jury selection and heard the two opening statements until 1pm, broke for lunch until 2pm, heard another hour of witnesses and then off to deliberate. There were a lot of red herrings and smoke screens that we needed to sift through.
This was the fascinating part of the day. In criminal court we were instructed that the defendant was presumed not guilty and the commonwealth had to prove without reasonable doubt that he/she was guilty. We were deciding on two areas and we pretty quickly came up with guilty in one area. The second area was when it felt like "12 Angry Men". I really did not want to go back to deliberate tomorrow and we had to be done by 4:30pm. 5 of us were on one side and the person who had been selected to be the foreman of the jury was not there. I tried to be patient and quiet to see if he/she would come around but no such luck. Then as the clock ticked away I started asking "Is there any reasonable doubt about xxxxxxxxx?" Ladies and gentleman of the jury wanted the policeman to do something different. HELLO, you cannot go back and change that. This is the evidence we have. (I said this on the inside, not out loud)I was pretty patient and let the others convince him/her. For those who know me well, this is newer behavior. I trusted the process and resigned myself to coming back tomorrow. All of a sudden there was a breakthrough. Someone asked the question in a different way, with a different twist. YAHOOOOOO
My observation that you bring 7 strangers together, have them listen to the same information, charge them with a task to work together and come up with a unanimous decision. Yes, this is our civic obligation. We place a lot of trust in a trial with a jury of our peers. The poor alternate juror did not get to deliberate with us, had to hang around and was brought back with us for the punch line.
It was fun today, I learned a bit about myself, I tried to be patient and sat back and let others take over until the deadline loomed and then someone asked the question one more time. People lives are placed in the hands of a jury of their peers. WOW!!!
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