G'day Everyone.
Well, salute to Micah Brown for his story about how his jury duty went.
Mine? G-d forbid I ever have to serve on another one in my life time. Oh man. What a criminal trial. Listening to a testimony all day yesterday? I think the defense did an overkill of all their witnesses. Their 4 witnesses to the prosecution's 2 witnesses. It was kind of like a "civil war" volley of words.
I felt happy to use the Phonic Ear. Could hear everything and then some.
We had 4 charges to act on. 1 count of Reckless bodily endangerment, simple assault 1, simple assault 2, and aggravated assault. That's because the defendant hurt a person. A father hurting his son. Don't want to go into all the gory details. I got enough I'd to forget about.
The trial had ground on pretty long yesterday and by the time it was 5pm, it was finally turned over to the jury.
Once we got in the jury lounge (small room 1 table, coat rack, and bath room), we sat down and the first question asked was, who wants to be foreman? It all ended up on me!
ME, the FOREMAN? oh heck! Well, we could have debated all night of the events of the trial, but we were all pissed tired. So we took a vote and said, yeah.. come back tomorrow. Which that is today. The judge was pleased of that decision so we came back in today.
Today was one day I won't forget for awhile. While the session in the jury room was stormy at time, I was kind of angry with the PA State Police for doing such SLOPPY work of a job. We decided on 3 issues before we got into a deadlock on a last issue (simple assault 1). We had to go back to the court room twice to hear instructions by the judge twice.
Had lunch. Then the storm broke into full force with 3 hold outs. For the next two hours, we had a discussion back and forth. At times, I almost had to declare "deadlock" issue. Finally, we succeeded on the note of 2 not guilty and 2 guilty issues of the charges.
Finally, we called back the judge who had to stop another trial in progress and deliver the verdict. I won't forget the moment to speak the verdict. But it was a tough thing to do.
So, once it was delivered, we were thanked for the job we had to do. We had the option to stay, but most of us choose to scatter.
My duty's over. Hopefully just once in my life and never again. Truth is, I'll never watch "Law and Order" ever the same again. The same thing applies to "Walker, Texas Ranger".
Well, as fate would go, I planned to head to Washington, DC for the job fair tomorrow. But
now, I'm staying in PA and may go to a local job fair and then decide what to do after that.
Who know if I'll get called back on the jury duty one day. But In truth, I just hope this is only one time in my life. Then never again.
So I'm off to rest for the night. Semper Fi.
1 comment:
Rule of the thumb. If you never ever wanted to do the Jury Duty or the one you just did, you could have easily gotten a Doctor note to declear your disability and a good reason why you should not be doing Jury duty. That will waive you from jury duty. I did exactly that and I was waived from going to jury duty. I am only one in a million in the society. Why would the court need me for Jury duty when there are plenty of others? I pay my taxes and I vote. For me, I believe jury duty is something that I don't need to be doing or required to do. I am sorry the trial took it toll on you and secondly that you are not able to go to the job fair at Gallaudet in which I totally understand. I hope you get the rest you richly deserved.
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