My Civic Duty

As you are aware, this upcoming Thursday is my last day with my current company. But instead of packing up my cube, transitioning my responsibilities, and trying to steal trade secrets and office supplies I am performing my civic duty. That's right, I was called to jury duty this morning.

It is an interesting process. I showed up at 8:15 AM as requested. By 8:45 AM I was in court room 5D with 47 other suckers. The lawyers for both the prosecution and defense proceeded to ask what they called "general" questions where were asked to raise our hands if we answered in the positive. This was followed by individual questions where each juror was asked to stand up and then the prosecution and defense asked individual questions to gain more knowledge of each juror. At 11:30 AM we had gotten through 12 of the 48 jurors. The judge let jurors 1-12 (who had already been interviewed) and jurors 25-48 leave for lunch while they continued with jurors 13-24. I was juror 26. We came back at 1:30 PM and they finished the individual interviews at around 2:40 PM. At 2:45 PM, I was one of 13 lucky jurors to be picked for the jury. They let the other 35 jurors leave and the 13 of us got new instructions and were sent to the jury room. When we came back (with our notepads) we had to be sworn in as jurors and then the lawyers gave their opening remarks.

I can't tell you any specifics about the trial until it is over, but I can tell you that it is a criminal case and the defendant is charged with 2 counts of aggravated assault with a gun (they have eluded that it may be a gang related shooting, but that is yet to be determined). I will update you when the trial is over, but it should be interesting. The judge and lawyers said that they anticipate the trial to run through at least Thursday.

A lot of the people at the courthouse were complaining about having to be there today. I can see where if you have children that you are responsible for or if you are really busy at work how this could be really inconvenient. However, for me, considering I really have NOTHING to do at work this week, I actually am excited about the opportunity to see how our judicial system works and to be a part of it. Hopefully I will do a good job and hopefully justice will be done.

God Bless America,

-Juror #26