Recently, I got a look at the Justice system up close and personal from a new perspective – a juror.\u00a0 I have been called for jury duty many times in my life, but have successfully managed to dodge the bullet.\u00a0 I was either lucky enough not be chosen as a prospective juror on a case, or I was dismissed by either one of the attorneys or the judge for reasons that, to this day, are unknown to me.\u00a0 However, this time, I was selected for a criminal case.\u00a0 I was officially Juror #2.<\/p>\n
Let me tell you – it ain’t like on TV.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some quick impressions of real court – the judge looked bored most of the time (when his face wasn’t subconsciously reacting to the antics of the ADA or defense attorney – I would love to play poker with this man).\u00a0 Both attorneys were in dire need of better scripts.\u00a0\u00a0And they seemed to have developed their strategy 5 minutes before court started.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The defense lawyer must have gotten his degree from DeVry – he seemed unclear on how to act in a courtroom, what were the grounds for objections, how to ask appropriate questions, and so many others things.\u00a0 He dressed like Atticus Finch, but looked like Beaker from the Muppets.\u00a0 And his name was Funk (I rest my case).\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ADA was dressed for success – dark blue suit, well groomed, and an an air of competence about him.\u00a0 He seemed to know a little more about “lawyering” than Funk (gotta love that name), and probably graduated from a real law school –\u00a0I assume somewhere in the lower tier.\u00a0 His name was Mr. D*n**nville\u00a0(through the whole trial I never really caught his name).\u00a0<\/p>\n
During jury selection they looked like they were trying hard to get the best jury for their side, but were unsure of how to do that.\u00a0 Of the first 17 prospective jurors (the judge kicked 3 during his questioning), only 3 were chosen (remember, I was Juror #2).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those that were not chosen were sent back to the jury waiting room.\u00a0 Those they were (like me) were sent home – the judge felt that the rest of this day and all the next would be taken up with jury selection, so we didn’t have to come back until Wednesday morning (early enough to get there, park, get through the metal detectors and up to the 4th floor by 9:30am when the trial began).<\/p>\n
NEXT – The Lawyers Needed Better Writers – Part\u00a0II\u00a0 (The Evidence Wars)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently, I got a look at the Justice system up close and personal from a new perspective – a juror.\u00a0 I have been called for jury duty many times in my life, but have successfully managed to dodge the bullet.\u00a0 I was either lucky enough not be chosen as a prospective juror on a case, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-observations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/waynecoughlin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/waynecoughlin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/waynecoughlin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waynecoughlin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waynecoughlin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/waynecoughlin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9,"href":"https:\/\/waynecoughlin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions\/9"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/waynecoughlin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waynecoughlin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/waynecoughlin.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}