Jury Duty: Selection

For a long time, I despised being on jury duty.  I avoided it almost everytime my name came up.  Not only here, but also when I was in North Carolina.  I always got out on an excuse.  

Today, being on the Petite Jury.  I had to go in this morning as per my instructions last night during my call in.  The waiting was the hardest.  We reported in at 0900 but due to some court technicality.  At 1000, We were given a three hour lunch.  I took the time to call Rhoda to let her know what was going on.  Lunch was at Shirley's Restaurant. I didn't use up the whole 3 hours.  I went back at 1200.  

The waiting area is small for our group size and warm.  I don't think that there should be that many people in that small room.  But that's up to the Fire Marshal to enforce.  The only good thing was the WiFi gave out a good signal.   

At one point, we were heading down to the courtroom.  Only to be turned around at the bottom and told to return back up to the waiting room.  The system has to be better than how they're doing it now.  So up we went and back to sitting and waiting.  

After a long while, we were told to head back down to the courtroom.  Once inside, we were shown to our seats.  Yes, we sat down again and waited.  But this time, it got interesting.  A turn for the better.  We were all sworn in, then the judge introduced herself, the prosecutors got up and introduced themselves, and then it was the Defendant's side that introduced themselves to us.  

The judge gave a short civics class on the constitutionality of the defendant's right to a fair trial.  That caught my interests as she explained the process.  For the first time I was interested in serving as a juror.  I didn't want to leave after that.  But after the judge read the complaint.  I knew I could not serve honestly.  There were a series of questions that the judge asked and on each question we had to determine within ourselves if we could serve as jurors based on the facts to be presented by both the defense team and prosecuting team and instructions from the judge herself.  

Later, when it came time to stand before the judge, the defense lawyer, and prosecutor.  I went up and gave them my reason.  I was excused from serving on this trial.  It's okay.  They'll be other trials.