Wednesday, September 27, 2006

JUROR #18







I got up very early this morning so that I could get myself downtown and to the courthouse in time. There are parts of this city that I can get around in just fine and there are parts that I am still a little fuzzy about...well the side where the court house is...that is the part where I am fuzzy....

I knew that I HAD to be there on time (course I found out that a lot of people still did not care). But I care!! I finally found the right street and drove around it a couple of times before I figured out just which one of the parking garages that I needed to park in. Once I found the right one and found the right ONE WAY street to turn into I had it MADE!! I found a good parking space and then wondered...AM I IN THE RIGHT GARAGE!! You know it makes you wonder when things work out so well!

I get into the court house and have my purse ran through a scanner (am I at the airport AGAIN)!! But I knew that was going to happen. Asked for directions (I am a woman) from a BIG policeman!! I had to go to the elevators and proceed to the second floor. When I reached the second floor with another fellow juror we found right away where we were to go since there were a WHOLE bunch of people that looked as lost as we were!!

We all followed each other into a BIG room with comfy chairs. It had a huge TV screen with the weather channel going (for OUR pleasure, I guess). We had to have our papers filled out and our tickets for parking stamped. Silly me had left my ticket in the car....BUT they were prepared for dummys like me and gave me a sticker to put on my ticket!! I did not want to walk back since walking there in the first place took so much out of me (sick remember)!!

A nice lady took over and was very sweet. She must do that everyday. What a job!! She explained everything that we were to do. Believe it or not people kept arriving AFTER the time to be there..
How RUDE I say!! (one of my pet peeves)!! Finally she just shut the door and told us NOT to let anyone else in. We watched a movie on jury duty and what it meant and all. Here I am 61 and learning all about our jury system. (Better late than NEVER I say)

We then were told that we had two trials going on today. We would be divided up into two groups. I was put into the first group. We were sat in numerial order. As you can see by my souvenir above I was number 18...the last number of the first group. Checks were handed out to each of us. We made $10.00 a piece today for coming. I am finally making money!! WOW!

We were then ushered to the 4th floor jury room H. In there it was a quiet as could be. The judge and the attorneys plus the man that was in trouble and the witnesses were all seated waiting for us. Each attorney got up and asked questions. You were to lift your hand if you fit into the category of that question. For example, have you never been drunk? I raised my hand. They would then take that number...mine being 18 and then if they thought it was important ask you about it. Since the case was about a DUI that was important. You learned a lot about your fellow jurors that way.

They asked us if anyone thought they needed to be at home for some reason. If you thought so Please raise your hand. I raised my hand....#18...why do you need to be home....I said..."because I have been sick all week and still am!!" The attorney said, "Guess everyone should scoot down from that lady." Maybe that helped me but really all I wanted to do was to go home and lay down.

It was interesting to see everything. I felt so bad that I just wanted to go home and forget about it all. Melli, you would have loved being there. I kept thinking why can't it just be Melli and not me!! She would be having a good time and all I want to do is to lay down!!

They finally picked the 6...since it was a misdemeanor trial and the judge dismissed us saying that we STILL had to call in tonight and tomorrow night after 6:00 in case they called our NUMBER AGAIN!! Man I hope not!!

I did enjoy the experience!! But it would have been better if I had felt better too!! I would have not been able to think straight. I am just happy to be back home!!




9 comments:

Wystful1 said...

Hi Sandy!!
This all sounds like how Arizona did their chosing for the peers to be on the trial as jury. And we too had been dismissed if not chosen and still had to call in....but I think for us, it was a whole work week that we had to continue calling in. Then in Colorado, where I had 3 trials to sit in on...they did it entirely different. It must depend on the selective courts how they do things.

I got on a trial a couple of times there. For me, it's just not fun. Interesting of course, but I'm critical I guess, it was just too disruptive in our life.

Anyway, I've been so very busy this week, I've not had any online time much except for today. I'm getting ready to start redecorating the whole house inside, and we have foundation problems on the house---and beautiful weather---Autumn like that I just most times didn't even bother having the computer on.

Except for Melli today and another online friend, you're the only one I've visited.

I'm gonna try and catch up on catching up with y'all tomorrow.

Hadda stop by and say "hello". Hope you're feeling better real soon. And if you do get picked for a trial....hope you have a good one and you enjoy it.

on the Rock said...

Sorry to hear you're suffering from a cold. What a day at jury duty for you! Hope you don't have t go back, but at least you got some money!

Lulu said...

hope you feel better soon..I would hate to be there and not feel good..
take care,

Lazy Daisy said...

Ahhhh.....to be 18 again! (What did I miss something?) Hope you are feeling better babe. Glad you survived!

Anonymous said...

FlipFLop: sorry you're feelin' so lousy. Hope you get better soon. I think Illinois has the same type of call in process now, but years ago when I had to go on jury duty, I had to show up EVERY DAY! I was thinking it was 2 weeks, but it may have only been a week (seemed like a month). Anyway, we just sat there and waited to see if the Judge would call us in to be questioned. Finally, my last day I got to go to the court room to be questioned. I was so excited! I thought "How cool! I get to be on a jury." NOT! Unfortunately, the person was someone I knew. I didn't think he knew me, but I knew him, mostly by reputation and he was a very scary dude let me tell you. Judge took recess and I went over and told the Baliff. When we came back from recess, Judge excused me before anything else even started. When I walked by this guy he spoke to me and called me by name. Didn't even know he knew my name. Whew! Scared the bejesus out of me! Anyway, it was quite an experience. The only other time I got called was before that and I worked at a newspaper and they said "no" from the start. Image that!
Get better. Love ya. Miss ya.

Melli said...

Sandy, you are sooooooo right! I would have LOVED to be there! Much more than being at WORK today for sure! And ten bucks is not bad pay for doing nothin' but saying "I wanna go home"! LOL! I hope you got to rest this afternoon! And I hope you're done now!

Lisa said...

Hi there! Sorry to hear that you are still feeling awful! At least you did not get picked to be on the actual jury! I am sure you may have found it interesting at least if you would have been feeling a little better. And maybe if it was not a dui! I would have had a hard time with that one, cause I despise drunk drivers. I think I would not have been able to make an un biased decision on the case. Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Peggy said...

sure hope you are feeling better! I bet if you weren't sick you would have been top juror!!

Gattina said...

What a story ! May aunt told me once that she had to do that for a murder trial in Madison/Wisc. Fortunately it never happened to me although I would like to sit a courtroom and just watch but so far I only managed that by watching TV.