Jury Duty Done
(picture is the view from the 6th floor of the criminal courts building)
Sat in voir dire all day but was not selected for the jury. I was impressed with the judge, she was charming and funny, did her best to make an intolerable process more tolerable. I was not impressed with the prosecutor or the defense attorney, they both were rather rambling and unfocused. I was not impressed with my fellow jurors, from what I could tell more than half of them either didn’t brush their teeth or bathe with any regularity. Several of them were more than commonly stupid and had trouble grasping the most basic of concepts regarding the case at hand.
I am extremely glad I did not get picked for the jury, as it was a criminal trial involving forcible rape/sodomy and kidnapping as well as 1st degree assault. I won’t go into any details because the trial is still going on, but I would have found that very hard to sit through, though I would have if necessary.
I was called early, 10 a.m. or so, and the rest of the day was spent in slowly losing the feeling in my ass as I sat on a wooden bench listening to interminable questions about things that really shouldn’t have taken that much clarification. So I didn’t get to read most of the material I brought with me. But I did read a back issue of The Sun, which magazine I dearly love but never make or take the time to read. There was a poem by Ellen Bass titled “Winter Solstice” and these lines were very resonant for me and the way I have been feeling this year:
I am so tempted to wish myself into the future,
the night over, as though life were infinite
and I could afford to throw away the inferior bits—
Isn’t that true? I am wishing away “inferior” bits of my life all the time. I need to either stop wishing them away, or make sure that there are fewer bits I find inferior, I suppose.
I stopped subscribing to The Sun because I would never take the time to read it, and it made me guilty when it sat there untouched. I was thinking that re-subscribing to it would be a good birthday present, but I think a better birthday present might be allotting myself the time to sit down and read it when it arrives - no matter how busy I feel. Can you gift yourself with time?
There was also a quote from Mignon McLaughlin in their “Sunbeams” section that read:
The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next.
I have not been feeling like a very courageous person lately. But judged by that standard and the fact that I have arrived at this moment, I suppose I am doing OK.
Filed under: anti-socialism, crime |3 Responses to “Jury Duty Done”
Leave a Reply
Plus smart people are less likely to wind up on a jury, anyway, so we’ve got that going for us. No matter what the case is, one lawyer or the other is going to want dumb jurors. I’ve read more than once that lawyers try to limit the number of decently intelligent jurors. I’m guessing when smart people do get on a jury, it’s because there were too many smart people that day, and the lawyers couldn’t get rid of them all.
And anyway, I would be a bad juror. My ADD and I would be completely bored, and I’d end up mentally criticizing fashion victims, rather than paying attention. But I suppose that’s still better than the guy in front of you.