Posted on 03/14/2017 10:40:20 AM PDT by blueunicorn6
I recently had the opportunity to fulfill my civic duty.
I gave Al Franken an Atomic Wedgie.
No.....just kidding. Though I do think that every American should pull Al Franken's shorts over his head.
I was called for jury duty.
They sent me an engraved invitation with a veiled threat to kick my donkey if I didn't show up at the appointed time.
The invitation said to wear "appropriate clothing", and I was going to the jury pool, so I tried to check in wearing my speedo and flip flops.
Turns out there's some kind of dress code to try out for the jury team, so I had to go home and change.
When I returned with my appropriate attire, they had me sign in and go and sit in an oven. It was roasting in the jury room. All 70 or 80 of us potential jurors were jammed into a room not much larger than a dorm room.
Some of us potential jurors had thought ahead and brought things to entertain us while we waited.
I brought some dice.
I won four cell phones and a pair of socks. Hey! Winning is winning.
They called us and we left the sauna for the cool and relaxing court room.
Thus began the traditional legal practice of "void dire" which I guess is French for "tired butt" because we sat for quite awhile.
I had very low expectations of the Judge and the lawyers. I am happy to say that I was really wrong about them. They were competent and considerate. I was pleased with everyone in the court room except for one group.
My fellow potential jurors.
Oh my God.
The lawyers ask the potential jurors questions to try and determine if they will be fair.
The lawyers aren't going to look you in the eye and ask you if you are a dirty liar.
They probably should have.
Of course, they would have had to send out for more jurors and all lawyers want to run for political office someday so they try not to embarrass anyone.
They ask a lot of hypothetical questions.
For example, the lawyer might ask, "Let's say you find a dead chicken in your yard and you see fox tracks but the fox says he didn't do it.....would you believe the fox?"
Well, I've talked to a lot of foxes and I know that they'll say anything to stay out of trouble, so I said as long as we were making shirt up that I would just ask my talking dog if he knew who killed the chicken.
That was the last question they asked me.
But, oh, how my fellow potential jurors spilled their guts.
We found out that one had a communicable disease. Another told us about her love life which was pretty boring. I kid you not, there was a lady who raised her hand four times to comment that she wasn't sure if she could be fair or not, but she thought she could be.
When she raised her hand for the fifth time, the Judge dismissed her.
I have recently discovered this new thing called "Virtue Signaling". It's basically where you're trying to impress everyone with what a good person you are. We had lots of Virtue Signaling.
You couldn't swing a dead cat in that group of jurors without hitting someone who felt the desperate need to tell the Judge and lawyers and fellow potential jurors how virtuous they were.....the dirty liars.
And ladies, I'm sorry to tell you, but probably 95% of the Virtue Signaling was done by females. They would recite the Girl Scout Oath and tell everyone they lived by it. We had sworn an oath to be truthful and these women were trying to convince everyone that they were Mother Theresa or a reasonable facsimile.
I started looking for Angels wings.
I guess they really wanted to be a juror. Me, I could take it or leave it. I figured my talking dog comment had probably caused both lawyers to pull the black ball on me.
We had one lady who just had to talk. She told us about movies she had seen. She told us about her friends and family. She told us about her ethnic heritage.
Finally, I could take no more.
I stood up and pointed at her and yelled, "For crying out loud, your Honor, can you give this woman the death penalty right now and save the rest of us?"
I was excused. Chatty Kathy is on the jury.
I have been called three times. Got off the first time.
Second time I decided to play it straight and honest and let the chips fall where they may. I was selected: Vehicular Manslaughter w/ gross negligence was the case. Both defendants were found guilty.
Now that I have done my civic duty, I will never do it again. Third time I was dismissed. It was a DWI case.
Question: 'Does anyone believe that a law enforcement officers sworn testimony should carry more weight than that of anyone else?
I raised my hand and then stated: 'A police officer's sworn duty is to uphold the law. We pay them a very generous salary to do so and thus have a lot of faith in them. I will take the officer's word over that of a drunk.'
I was dismissed.
the $50/day
____________________________________
seriously ???
the last time I was called for jury duty here in SE TN it was $11...
Prolly if you wore a MAGA hat or shirt they would turn you away at the door.
It was just announced that the jury for the Bill Cosby trial is going to be selected here in Pittsburgh and then bused over to Philly.
I imagine that jury selection will get REALLY wild as people vie for a spot on a celebrity jury.
When I fill out the jury member data card, it asks for my occupation: I've been a court stenographer for military courts-martial since 1978, both as active duty and civil service. As part of those duties, I have been involved in well over 5000 military court proceedings. Having lived here in Texas since 1975 and, excepting three one-year tours to Korea and one three year tour to Germany, was never assigned to any state-side post except for Fort Hood, retiring here in 1994, I personally know many of the civilian attorneys and state- and district-court judges in Bell County.
I never get to stay very long after the judge and counsel start looking over the data cards ...
I have some nicely decorated and artistic T-Shirts that might be acceptable, except that they have slogans and stuff in languages practically no one would recognize.
Thank you for posting this! At first I thought it would be some insipid vanity but NO! It draws you into the story. It’s more like a documentary. You could make a screenplay out of this or a book. maybe a movie! In fact this should be moved to Breaking News. It’s that important. bookmarked as required reading for all FReepers. Again I wish to thank you for posting on this bandwidth-restricted forum some well deserved wisdom.
Or arrest you for "hate speech"
I don’t know what they pay now. I think it was about $35 back when I last did it, so figured it was more by now. I tried to find that answer, but don’t see it/don’t have time to research. I believe the allowance included enough for downtown parking, which was about $10/day at the time.
I got called so late that the conversation went like this:
“Do you know anyone in the room?”
“No your honor”
“Be seated”.
1st degree murder. The guy drove around for 1.5 years with the victim in his trunk. The pictures were horrific.
Bob: thank you and please take your medicine.
bookmark
Husband and I had a summer place in Key Largo, so registered to vote there, in Monroe County, which guaranteed we’d never be called. Monroe County, had for decades never get jurors to show up at court. Fuggedaboutit was their answer to petty crime. Monroe had even seceded from the Union at one point, printed their own money. Ferociously independent, these Keys dwellers.
That was a few decades ago, before the drug trade became large in Monroe County. Perhaps they are actually arresting people now and getting jurors to show up. Probably not, since Prohibition rum runners didn’t make waves in the legal system there.
For those of you on this thread (you know who you are) who, like my father did, seek to shirk your civic responsibility, I say: Shame on you. If you're ever on trial, you'll certainly hope the jurors deciding your fate are not your scofflaw peers. Additionally, for those who claim to be Christians, please read and consider Romans 13, among other pertinent Scriptures, regarding faithfully rendering unto Caesar. Christian or not, please reconsider next time you're called about becoming part of the solution rather than remaining a problem for the rest of us.
Hilarious and TRUE.
I was once dismissed from a jury because....wait for it...I honestly replied that I listened to Country music on the radio when I listened to radio at all.
That was the reason.
I fulfilled my obligation and I did take it seriously. I was actually the hold out for a considerable period of time.
Two defendants, Vehicular manslaughter w/ gross negligence (a felony) or alternatively just VM (a misdemeanor). One defendant was a young woman, her passenger was killed. He was also her brother. Everyone wanted her to be convicted of VM and the other defendant to be found guilty of VM w/GN.
I argued for both to be convicted of the same level of crime. so was arguing to lower the charge against the second defendant. We argued for 10 hours over two days.
I am of the opinion that everyone should serve on a jury once. If everyone did, not one would serve twice.
I feel justly shamed by you.
I think I should be in prison.
If I was in prison, would you bring me a cake with a file in it? And I mean a metal file, not some computer file. You could probably saw through prison bars with a computer file but it would take like a bazillion years and I’d be out on good behavior in two or three million years anyway.
I just got a Grand Jury summons and am on jury duty for a week in April, May, and June. Lovely.
Second that. I've served on two juries. Both were composed of well-educated, quite serious adults who did their level best to render a fair verdict. This was in Washington, DC, but both juries were overwhelmingly white. On one occasion, there was only one black person and no hispanic or asian person amoung the twelve jurors and two alternates. We were all joking about it in the jury room: "Hey, this is DC. Look at us. How did this happen?" The middle-aged black lady was laughing just as hard as anyone else.
Two juries. One acquitted the defendant. The other was a hung jury, after three days of deliberation. In that instance, it was clear to us that, for whatever reason, we were no being presented the real facts of the case. We even sent a note out to the judge asking if we could ask questions. The judge called us into the courtroom, looked us over, smiled and said, "The rules in the District of Columbia allow juries to ask questions with the judge's consent. Some judges allow jury questions. Others do not. I do not." And so back we went. We did not reach a verdict, and I hope Groundhog Day struck that judge and she's rehearing the case to this day.
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