today i had jury duty. as some of you might recall, i was actually supposed to have jury duty last week. but i forgot to go. ha ha ha, $1,500 fine or possible jail time, i spit in your face. nothing but rescheduling happened to me.
this morning, i got up and showered before 8am. a shocking turn of events. and then drove to the courthouse in martinez. it immediately became apparent to me that jury duty is a very lame and boring interruption of my days of laziness. i sat in the waiting room for 2 hours doing homework and listening to my IPOD. 12 people got called and went away to be on a jury. the rest of us sat. finally at 11, 50 of us got called to be on a jury selection process. unfortunately for me, i was juror #12. actually ON the jury already. a sad day in the neighborhood, my friends. my tail drooped to dropping and i sat under my own little cloud of gloom. for an hour the judge nattered on in his senile way and then started asking the potential jurors questions. i made googly eyes at the assistant district attorney and the defendant. also the other jurors, the court recorder woman, the judge, the freakish looking defendant attorney, and the singing gun-toting black woman guard. it was incredibly dull. i attempted to get out of the whole nonsense by saying i was a student and had to go to class on friday. but it was only supposed to be a 3 day trial so they said tough luck. after that i tried nothing and just sat and was agreeable. though i did keep catching eyes with the assistant DA and the defendant. smiling.
we went to lunch. i called kristen and complained vociferously about the boredom and stupidity. kristen tried to coax me into admiring the legal system. it didn’t work.
from 1:30 to 3:30, i continued being juror #12 as other jurors disappeared all around me. one old man cried and had to go into chambers before he was excused. i was a little worried for him. he was old, after all. then the lawyers asked us questions. neither asked me anything. i sat patiently smiling politely at people, settling into my swivel chair for a 3 day stay.
and then, AND THEN, the assistant DA excused me. she excused me first and only! i was excused! given a slip of paper and sent on my way! and why?, i ask you! why was i excused out of all the people in the room? because i’m young and female and they were trying a young male for joy-riding in a car! ecstasy! certainly i offered no other resistance to the process and had nothing against car thieves, relationships with lawyers or police officers, or incidents of personal injury to report. i had no moral problems with serving (or at least i didn’t reveal any). no one asked me any questions at all really. and yet she excused me.
i sort of love her now. she was kind of cute. also married, so i’m not getting any ideas. but thank god i made eye contact with her and also with the defendant. she must have suspected me of being sympathetic to his plight or something. though i wasn’t. i’m pretty sure he was guilty and distrustful of the whole bit about not being able to say someone’s guilty when you’ve heard no evidence. well, i admit i wasn’t being fair. maybe she knew that too. though if so then i was on her side and she should have kept me. or maybe lawyers just don’t like people under 30 (jason’s thought). or students. whatever. it doesn’t matter now because i’m free! gloriously set free from stupid jury duty of boringness.
Wow. When I had jury duty I had the same feeling of mind numming boredom. I however was lucky enough not to be called up into the box and just had to sit through it all until they had picked their damn jury. I will say though that the judge who was in charge just married a couple here at the Ranch last week. Now that was weird.