All Rise

I had jury duty this week! This was my first time to be called and it was a really interesting experience. I felt I would probably not stick around long, but instead... I was assigned to two juries and almost three. :-) They had over 700 cases to dispose of this week. Lots of those end in plea agreements before they get to a jury. There were about 125 people there (after they initially dismissed about 50 people for random things) and I was in the Jury Lounge for about an hour and was then called in the first randomly chosen group of 30 to go for jury selection. I was in the 12 that were selected for that case. It was a civil case in which one man hit another over the head with a board. Our deliberations took way longer than they should have... but it was a FUN group of fellow jurors. I even had lunch with a few of them. I haven't laughed so much in quite a while. I miss them already! After that case was completed (found in favor of the defendant (UPDATE: I meant to say "plaintiff"... I hope I know the difference! ha), but only awarded him half of his medical bills since we felt both men were provoking each other) ... on Tuesday afternoon, we were sent back to the jury pool. An hour later, I was called in the next randomly selected group of 30 to another civil case. By Wednesday morning, I was selected to be on that jury, as well. BORING testimony for 2 hours and then the judge dismissed the case due to lack of evidence. (As I was sitting there thinking, "Um... where's the evidence?!") So... back to the jury pool because by then, the clerk had thought there were no more cases and had sent alot of people home. But one of the judges surprised her. So I was NEEDED for the final jury pool of 30... a criminal case. So we waited. But unfortunately, it was settled Wednesday afternoon and we were never called. So I got to go home. But I was really wishing for a criminal case.

That's my story! And I got $33.75 for all that! Which is $33.75 more than I would have made those three days. :-) And I learned alot about the justice system. Yay!