Coming soon...my latest round of jury duty and the strange things that always happen during these times.
In the meantime...
WHY YOU WOULD WANT ME ON YOUR JURY
As the saying goes, would you want your fate decided by twelve people who were too stupid to get out of jury duty? I am not one of those stoopid 12. I have a brain and I actually know how to use it. I am one of those rare individuals who believes that jury duty is a necessary rite of citizenship. I do not try to avoid it. In fact, I rather look forward to serving once every couple of years. Contrary to how many of my fellow jurors in the past have thought, I believe every defendant to be innocent until proven guilty. No one is quite sure what that phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" means, but I always take it as "the prosecution better damn well have its shit together and convince the hell out of me" that some poor schmuck is guilty. I don't care how well or how poorly you are dressed. I don't care about your pretty smile or your rad tatto's. I come to my conclusions based on the evidence presented, my incredible perception, and the veracity of the witnesses. Which leads me to...
WHY YOU WOULD NOT WANT ME ON YOUR JURY
I have a pre-disposed distrust of authority. I do not assume that because a person is a cop that he is automatically a good, honorable person. In fact quite the opposite is true. I believe that a person in a position of power must go well beyond the norm to convince me that he is not corrupt. I also believe that most prosecuters will go to any length to obtain a conviction whether they truly believe the defendant to be guilty or not. I would prefer that those in power would seek the truth, not inflated conviction rates for re-election purposes. We shall see what wonderful stories develop in the next 28 days.
5 comments:
Holy Crike! I can't wait for an update!
I always come out of jury duty with a fistful of good stories.
I don't want to jinx myself, but I haven't yet had that experience. I'm sure they'll snag me soon enough but I'll end up giving them the wrong answer to one of their questions. And I'll be it'd be a good trial, too. Just my luck.
When I got called for jury duty in CA (Ventura Co., next one west of L.A.) the summons came with a check-off list of acceptable excuses with a blank where you had to explain why that excuse applied to you, and the note that if you checked one off you should consider yourself excused unless they got back to you.
Being the main caretaker of a handicapped preschooler got me out.
Nobody would ever select me anyway; I'm anglo, middle-class, an information junkie, and have a scientific degree. Whichever side was all about the expert testimony would be tossin' my fanny outta there first round.
I'm a white, middle class, male. They probably figure I'm the perfect juror. Ha! Little do they know, I am a radical subversive disguised as a mild-mannered janitor.
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