{"id":1030,"date":"2010-03-22T10:05:56","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T17:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=1030"},"modified":"2025-11-04T11:13:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T18:13:44","slug":"jury-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=1030","title":{"rendered":"Jury Duty"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can’t believe its been months since I went through the Jury Duty process.\u00a0 I’ve been meaning to blog the experience and have simply been too busy.\u00a0 I’d blame the holidays but really.. I can only blame my social life!\u00a0 (cackles of glee!)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Always in the past I’ve been able to get out of Jury duty.\u00a0 And then I was a military spouse registered in Texas (where they apparently don’t have juries as I was never called for jury duty there!\u00a0 But hey, its TEXAS!\u00a0 That state is its own planet, it is so different from California.) <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Then for years back in California I was the sole caregiver of my kids.\u00a0 But the laws have changed.\u00a0 If they’re in school, you can do Jury Duty…\u00a0 you’ll just have to get a sitter.\u00a0 Too bad if you can’t find one… FIND ONE, they say.\u00a0 But I homeschool my oldest, I plead.\u00a0 Fine they say, do it during Christmas Break. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So I sigh and agree.\u00a0 Because at heart, I’m an upstanding citizen.\u00a0 I\u00a0 may be off the wall, opinionated and something of a “freak” in other areas but I do firmly believe we should all tow the line and do our share when asked.\u00a0\u00a0 Unless you’re asking for money… then whoa, dude, you’re on your own!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So I report for Jury Duty.\u00a0 I got lucky it was in Pasadena and when I got to the jury room there was free wireless.\u00a0 Sweet!\u00a0 I can get some work done while I wait.\u00a0 And I did.\u00a0 Got emails answered and some data entry done.\u00a0 At the time I was hip deep in the online dating so I was a little disappointed I couldn’t go online to The Site and get through some emails because the site was blocked because of content.\u00a0 Oh.. duh! <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On that first day I learned you wait and wait.\u00a0 If your name is called, that’s bad because it means you go into a pending jury and off to the next step.\u00a0 And if you’re lucky at the end of the day they dismiss all of you and you’re done.\u00a0 OR if you are NOT lucky they have you come back the next day to do it all again. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of my first day they dismissed a few (no doubt they’d been in the pool too long) and told the rest of us to come back tomorrow.\u00a0 Darn, but oh well, gotta do it. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So the next day I’d tried to make a few lunch dates because they released us for an hour and a half lunch.\u00a0 But the few I managed ended up canceling or flaking.\u00a0 Oh but I did make a phone call meet.\u00a0 Normally I’ll text a guy but not necessarily call them.\u00a0 Because I’m at work or I’ve got my kids and texting is private and a phone call isn’t! <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

But Jury Duty.. oh another matter.\u00a0 So I’m in the hall talking to a new young man on my cell phone and it is so much fun.\u00a0 Hell, I’m pretty naughty.. but with a subtle audience.. Oh, I’m much worse!\u00a0 That made that day fun.\u00a0 But at the last hour they called a group of us, including me, and walked us down the hall to the court.\u00a0 DAMN!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

They swore us in, explained this next process and the basics of the case and then asked for those who felt they should be excused.\u00a0\u00a0 They then dismissed the rest of us to come back tomorrow and they dealt with those dissenters.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So back the next day, but this time I”m really worried.\u00a0 The case turned out to be a criminal trial, a murder case.\u00a0 With gangs.\u00a0 And after the first hour of watching the process I got worried I might end up on this jury.\u00a0 How long would THAT take out of my life.\u00a0 And could I fairly judge a murder case?\u00a0 Civil lawsuit, no problem, STICK it to the Man!\u00a0 But a criminal case, send someone to jail?\u00a0 What if I’m wrong?\u00a0 That’s A LOT of pressure.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

And the process is this endless, confusing, merry-go-round selection process that makes me wonder HOW any case ever gets tried in “a timely manner” as the law dictates.\u00a0 They already had 12 people in the jury box.\u00a0 But they needed 5 or 6 in reserve.\u00a0 Ah but they kept substituting people and shuffling them around and dismissing the ones they don’t like. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As a juror you’re trying to to somehow convince either side that they don’t want you on their jury.\u00a0 So numbers would be called and people would file into the reserve jury seats and then answer the questions about themselves from the sheets.\u00a0 Obviously no names were called and if you felt you needed to answer the questions privately with the judge and lawyers you could (but it better be a good reason). <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The questions were interesting.\u00a0 What do you and everyone living in your household do?\u00a0 What is the level of education you and everyone in your household has?\u00a0 Have you or anyone you know been victim of a crime? Give details.\u00a0 What experiences have you had with law enforcement?\u00a0 Good, bad, give details.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

After each substitute juror answered the questions the lawyers would ask specific questions they had for each.\u00a0 After they’d done that they would begin the jury dance.\u00a0 They would substitute a juror from the new group to replace one already in the box or they would dismiss it with thanks.\u00a0\u00a0 Once both lawyers had done that a new group of substitute juror would sit in those now vacated seats and the whole process was gone through again.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

What was amusing<\/em> were the few who made statements in their question answering process that they hoped would make them unacceptable as jurors.\u00a0 “I believe drugs should be legalized” and things like that.\u00a0 What was interesting<\/em> was listening to the stories of these people and trying to figure out what the lawyers were going for.\u00a0 What was scary<\/em> was the fact they were running out of people!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Then my number was called.\u00a0 SHIT!\u00a0 So I filed in and answered the questions and realized I REALLY didn’t want to do this.\u00a0 As a writer I can come up with a thousand scenarios behind the motives of a person, or the circumstances of their actions, or how others could be responsible.\u00a0 Reasonable doubt was running rampant in my mind!\u00a0 Plus my libido was weighing in that she thought the defendant was kind of cute.\u00a0 If I told them THAT<\/em> would I get disqualified?\u00a0 I should!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

But one of the questions they asked was would you question the validity of a man’s testimony if you knew he was a gang member.\u00a0\u00a0 Would it color your judgment.\u00a0\u00a0 He also asked if you had several pieces of a puzzle but not the whole puzzle could you make a good guess as to what the picture was.\u00a0 If you had a tail, a trunk and ears… would you obviously know its an elephant.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So I knew their case was circumstantial and the testimony of another drug dealer was paramount.\u00a0 And as I thought about it I had to admit I would take with a grain a salt the testimony of a gang member against another gang member.\u00a0 Because I’m always wondering about the motivations of another person and I’d be wondering if the witness had a personal agenda.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By process of elimination I end up in Jury Slot 11 but happily the prosecutor didn’t like my admission of mistrusting a witness’ testimony if a gang member so he dismissed me.\u00a0 I could have kissed him!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

And could only pity the people still there in the process.\u00a0 After all, it was the day before New Years Eve!
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can’t believe its been months since I went through the Jury Duty process.\u00a0 I’ve been meaning to blog the experience and have simply been too busy.\u00a0 I’d blame the holidays but really.. I can only blame my social life!\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1117,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions\/1117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}