Have you done your civic duty?

For never having had much interaction with the court system I sure have had a lot of experience with it this year.

Yesterday I had the "pleasure" of being summoned for jury duty and doing my "civic duty". I was summoned back in June but the case was settled out of court and I didn't have to go in which was nice because we were going out of town that weekend. My name was put back into the pool to be randomly selected. Well it came back up this week and I had to go in this time. The jury selection was an interesting process. I was a little annoyed because it seemed like a lot of people were trying to get out of having to be on the jury. There was another pregnant lady there and she raised her hand and said that she physically wouldn't be able to be on the jury because she has to get up every hour or so. I was so bugged - yes I'm pregnant, yes it's good to get up and move around, but really? Just let me shift around in my chair and I'll be fine - which is what I told the judge. However, I was not selected to be on the jury - which I was somewhat relieved about although it wouldn't have been the end of the world. When they said that it was a jury of 4 I knew my chances of being selected were pretty slim with 40 other people there. I was surprised that the defendant was involved in the jury selection and was discussing with his attorney who he wanted to be on the jury. I thought he would have to be out of the room.

Earlier in the year I had to testify as a witness in a preliminary case for some fraud that I caught at work. The judge ruled there was enough evidence to go to trial. I was subpoenaed again in July to testify in the jury trial, but luckily the dumb guy decided to plead guilty the day before his trial. Thank goodness!

Even though the court system isn't perfect - I'm glad that I've had some opportunities to understand it better and to see how it all works. I've been very impressed with the judges and do not envy their job one bit!