I was called to Jury duty yesterday. So far, my luck with regard to jury duty has been poor. I have served on 9 cases over the last 15 years, a few of them, including a child rape case, took weeks to hear. It seems that whenever I get in the box, I fit the perfect jurist description because I never am challenged. The same was true yesterday, called to the first case of the day, I was seated in the first roll call, then sat in the jury box for three hours while the lawyers kicked every single other potential jurist off the panel. They worked through the entire 42-person jury pool, and then brought in 10 more. I survived to the finish. My tenth case started after lunch. I cannot comment on the case at the moment, but will in the future.
The thing I hate about jury duty is the idiots that attempt to serve but cannot see past their own bias. The worst offenders start off by stating, “... only God is can set in judgment”. What follows is usually both entertaining and disappointing. The judge will take about civic duty and fulfilling your duty to help make the government work. The judge will normally go out of his or her way to explain you are not judging the person, but instead judging the evidence and the veracity of the case. The potential jurist will then launch into some irrational pseudo religious justification for their beliefs, at which time those watching will try not to laugh, and the judge will kick the idiot off the jury. It happened four times yesterday, each argument just a little different, yet each person just as much a nut ball. A spoke with a few of my fellow jurists during a break, a few we devout Christians and were deeply embarrassed by what they had witnessed.
Of course, I did not mention the racists. I will save that one for tomorrow.
