Jury Duty

A few weeks ago I got that dreaded piece of mail: Jury Summons. There's no way out of this, there's nothing that can be done, and it's an important part of our legal system and civil liberties. Still I have a lot of things to get done at work and being out for a day (or longer) is a bit of an inconvience. But I'm pretty sure that "deadlines" isn't a valid reason to be excused, plus I don't think there's much more than a day at work that doesn't involve a series of deadlines. So I wait my turn and head to the court house.

Jury Selection

Heading to the courthouse, I knew there was going to be a lot of down time, so I packed my knitting (the second sock) and a book to read. I arrive at the courthouse right on time and park at the very other side of the lot, because this compact parking lot is jam packed. I get up to the door and go through security, and well, my knitting isn't allowed. There are convicts about and somehow my knitting is more dangerous than a normal pen or pencil. So I walk ALL the way back to my car, drop off my knitting and head back through. I sign in and take a seat and wait. Now I am perfectly happy sitting there (though it was a bit uncomfortable) and reading my book. But it was difficult. The person next to me was constantly weezing and smelled of cigaretts and something else, the people behind me were talking loudly and complaing, wanting things to "move along" like they thought it would help, and the history channel was on and being pipped through the whole room. But I sat there, reading my book, paying attention when I needed too.


Finally they start calling people. I get called for the first group, and I'm called 19th. Shoot. I'm going to be on the jury, unless they don't like me. If I was 60th, maybe not, but 19th.... after more groups are called we head up, take our seats (with me in front of the jury box) and wait to figure out what's going on. The hillarious thing? I am sitting in front of Judge Volz. What are the odds?! My name apparently is more common in Colorado than I thought. We sit, get asked a bunch of questions, when you say yes or no and explain why, you then get asked a series of other questions, trying to determine if you really mean that answer (especially if you say no), and then the dismissals start. The DA, he was very nice, and thanked every juror who left, the defense council, was a cold, uncaring pair of women, never said thankyou, didn't even look at you. But as I suspected, I got seated up there, given my instructions, then went home for the day. Oh joy, 4 days of spending time with these random 12 people and listening to a case involving alcohol.

Trial

We come in the next day (and in fact the next 2 days) to hear opening statements, witnesses, and experts. All in all there are a lot of objections (which I understand why, some of the other jurors were just getting annoyed with it all) some interesting points, some interesting cross examinations, and one expert witness (there were 2 total) who I thought shouldn't have been allowed to be an expert and wasn't really a working scientist. So I threw most of her stuff out. It was interesting, both from a "what happened" perspective, as well as a look at the legal system. During breaks I bonded with some of the jurors and others were less interesting to me. I found it funny how some of them started off with good stories, then suddenly there was a turn, like "I didn't know it was a gay community, we got the hell out of there, thankfully our kids were sleeping" and I'm sitting there trying to figure out what the big deal was, things like that. Finally the whole thing ended, there were closing statements, some friendly arguments back and forth between the DA and defense council, and we were able to start deliberation.

Deliberation

I am not a person who likes to argue. Its a personality trait of mine in addition to being an introvert. Thankfully there were a few vocal people who were on my side and so I didn't have to be the super vocal one. It was, for me, a very annoying discouraging and disapointing experience in the deliberation room. Several of the folks were hung up on scemantics and I just wanted to scream! One of the points of 2nd degree assault is "Serious bodily injury" now I know that something immediately popped into your head as to what serious means. But the definition comes with some simple things: risk of death, risk of disfigurement, risk of impared function, or broken bones, fractures, or burns. Now, regardless of what you think serious is, spending weeks in the hospital or having a bone broken in half through your skin, it took us forever to explain that this guy had a fracture, fracture is on the list, therefore serious injury. I am all for making legal language easier to understand, but maybe "bodily injury in the 2nd degree" would have been more helpful.

In the end there were 10 of us who voted guilty, and 2 who voted otherwise, and therefore we had to convict of a lesser charge. I've never felt more dirty and upset. The man was guilty of second degree... one woman had her definition of intent, which is almost impossible to meet in any situation, and we couldn't convince her that her definition was wrong and she needed to reconsider. The other woman said "I don't want to change any of your minds, but I have doubt and that's all I need" and more or less refused to say/participate any more.

All in all the experience was interesting. Learned a lot about law, the overall system, and I'm free and clear for a year. I feel bad that we couldn't convict him, but there's nothing left that I can do. The only thing left for me now is to hit work full speed and get everything that needs to be done, done. Then I can get back to having a more relaxing week at work.