Trial by Ire

Okay, I must come clean. I initially was all set to rip on the entire process of jury duty, the people, etc. However, having spent 2 weeks (scattered over a 3 week period) with these people, I'm having a hard time convincing my conscience of going along for the ride. I'd planned on turning the whole experience into a week of posts, but instead have opted to narrow it down to just 3 posts. However, this doesn't mean I've completely washed my hands of the episode, just that I'll attempt to be somewhat more restrained than usual. Naturally, I'll have to pepper my posts with periodic bursts of cynicism, scathing and observational humor, because, let's face it, that is part of the reason you come here....right? Either way, on to post 1:

I've been called for jury duty just once before. It was years ago (maybe 6?) and the particular case I was asked to consider was one about a woman who claimed that she'd been the victim of a sinister soft drink display in a grocery store. Sizing up the woman, her monetary demands and the fact that my own father had been assembling similar soft drink displays for all my life (plus the fact that he'd told me numerous, NUMEROUS stories of people who made a living "injuring" themselves in various ways in numerous grocery store establishments), I was already jaded about the entire process. Having always had more than my share of opinions (solicited or not), I had no qualms standing up and telling the lawyers this. Naturally, I was soon excused.

That was my first jury duty experience. My most recent one started out similarly, but in this particular case I was chosen. This particular case has many components & charges: Capital murder (9-year-old child)/child abuse/starvation/deadly weapon/kidnapping. I won't be going into all that much detail about the case, but will ultimately be posting links to various articles that appeared in the local newspapers, so that you won't be left completely in the dark. My focus will be on the how the judicial process works and observational humor amongst the other jurors. And since I've already blogged about my voir dire process, tomorrow I'll be introducing the cast of characters (AKA jurors).

Part 1 of 4
*Epilogue: Okay, I lied, I guess technically I did end up blogging about jury duty for a week. Oops.