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Jury Duty
The entire month of November I’ve been “on call” for jury duty. Every Monday night when I get off of work for the entire month I have to call into the courthouse and see if I have to go to jury the next day. I got through the first 3 weeks completely unscathed. Then there was this week.
This Monday night when I called into the jury hot line I got an unexpected surprise. “Jurors in group number 11-01 please report to the courthouse tomorrow at 8am.” I scrambled, double checking my sheet. Fruck! I was in group 11-01! Ugh! I was thinking “Now I have to get up and walk into a big sand castle of uncertainty, I don’t know exactly where to go, or what to do. I’m definitely going to make an asshole out of myself.”
Surprisingly enough the whole beginning part went really seamless. I found my way into the building, into the court room, got seated and was ready to rock and roll. Shortly after being seated some troll looking lady came out and smoker-voiced how everything was going to go down.
Apparently this was a big case and all 60 of us potential jurors had to stay through the whole selection process. They started counting us off randomly, I was number 12 and in the fucking jurors box to start off with. The judge comes in, along with the lawyers, and starts asking all of us questions to which we were to raise our hand if it applied to us.
I caught on to the name of the game a little bit late. Apparently the more times you raise your hand the less chance you have of being on the final jury as they were basically asking for reasons why you shouldn’t be chosen. Finally I snapped out of it and raised my hand during a question, fully expecting me to have to answer in front of the big group and hopefully lie myself out of the jurors box. No such luck. The question I raised my hand to had to be answered back in “Chambers”.
Three hours later I make my way back to chambers to get questioned by four lawyers, and a judge, while this is all being recorded by that little bitch typer lady. At this point I am getting fucking grilled by these lawyers as if I was the one on trial. Either way I knew this was my chance, I didn’t have a role in the high school play for nothing (it was a nontalking part, but still). I was going to act my way the fuck out of the jurors box! It went down kinda like this:
Lawyer: Do you think the defendant is guilty already before the trial has even started?
(Keep in mind the defendant was sitting basically right next to me.)
Me: Umm, I haven’t made a definite decision yet, but I’m certainly leaning in a certain direction.
(Defendant winces and shakes his head as if to say, “you racist fuck”)
Lawyer: Do you think you could make a sound judgment and set aside you’re strong feelings against sexual assaulter’s and allegations and actually judge this fairly?
Me: Definitely not, I am not reasonable whatsoever. I might hear something in court and it will make me go off and be completely irrational.
Okay, I’m not going to type out the entire conversation because they asked me the same fucking question five different ways. Not only that but they were whispering in each others ears and staring at me weird, the whole thing was fucking shady. After the questioning I was asked to leave the chambers and retake my seat in the box.
Another two hours go by and finally the judge and lawyers emerge from their room of questioning. The first round of cuts are in, and I am officially discharged of my potential jury duties. Thank fucking god. Nine other people and I got to leave the court room and go on our merry ways.
The jury was for this case HERE. Yeah, It was supposed to take over a week. Besides, kidnapping, sexual assault and a shotgun? Sounds like my average Tuesday.
*Erection Inducing Update* - Jury selection lasted an entire second day because a bunch of people read an article about the case before hand. It’s a good thing I left early on the first day.
