Jury duty

In many countries it is, but you'd have to ask Jonesy about China

 

Just tell the judge you can spot guilty people "just like that."

George Carlin would be proud.

 

I've been called a few times but only had to sit on a jury once. And the experience did not make me a fan of the jury system.

A kid tried to rob a convenience store and pulled a semiautomatic on one of the workers, who by the way was a next door neighbor of the robber.

The kid actually held the gun to the guy's head and pulled the trigger. The only reason it wasn't a murder trial was because the gun jammed. His lawyer was trying to sell us community service and time served - which wasn't much - the DA was asking for the maximum, which was like 30 or 40 years.

Going into the jury room I'm thinking we'll give the kid 20 years and he'll be out in 10. But we get in there and a significant number of jurors want to give the kid the minimum, 5 fucking years and he's out in 2.5. Two and a half years for trying to kill your fucking neighbor?

We had jurors who kept saying "think about what we're going to do to this kid."

Well what about the guy he tried to kill? How's he going to feel seeing the guy who damn near killed him on the street in two years?

The kid wound up getting 14 years and will be out in seven.

 

been called four times, never been seated.

 

Tell them you work for a newspaper and most times you're out. Closest I got was being an alternate. I got there because I told them I worked in sports and don't get into the political stuff. I thought the whole process was interesting, except for the colossal amount of time they waste. But I work nights, so being on jury duty meant I could have dinner with my wife and kid every night for two weeks.

 

Being a journalist used to be an automatic out, but that's no longer the case. In fact, a lot of lawyers want journalists on a jury because they think they're better at being impartial.

Last time I was called for jury duty, I was very upfront about my job, but that didn't prevent me from getting picked for a case. As it turned out, I'm glad. It wasn't long (only 2.5 full days), and it was interesting to see how the judicial system works (well, at a basic level, anyway).

 

Just got called, but in LA County, you call in every day to see if they need your group. After five days, my group never got called.

It's the third time in the last 8 years I've been called. The closest I came was 8 years ago, when I was on deck for an attempted murder with gang implications. Everyone around me got called for voir dire or however it's spelled. But for two days, my name never got called. They finally seated a jury.

When we first moved out here, Mrs. Birdscribe got called and actually got on a jury for a domestic violence case. Outside of actually having video, it was about as open-and-shut as you'll ever get, yet the jury deadlocked 10-2 for conviction.

As she put it, there were two rednecks on this jury who felt that if you beat the shit out of a woman, she had it coming. So no matter what, they weren't going to convict.

She came out saying someone should have beaten the shit out of them.

 

See, that's why I felt I lucked out.

In my case, a "gangster" wannabe thug got pissed off at his sister and her boyfriend and, along with three of his buddies, waited for the two to be seen together, stopped in front of the car, beat the shit out of him with a baseball bat, kicked her ass pretty good and went to town up and down the car, breaking every window and whatnot.

Now, these fuckers were far from bright. Not only did they do it in broad daylight, but they did it less than a mile from their house in a shitty neighborhood, but one small enough where tons of people knew the guys.

They then claimed self defense. Self defense.

Four guys beat the crap out of two people with a baseball bat, in BROAD daylight, in a small city where everyone knows them, go to town on the car and claim self defense.

After all the crappy witness testimonies that all pointed out the fact that this douchepickle defendant did it, we get to the last day, and he never shows up.

So instead of more talking, we got closing statements and got to go into deliberations. I was one of the voices in that deliberation room and as soon as we walked in, one guy goes "Yeah, he did it." We all laughed.

But, in what may have been one of the coolest experiences of my collage years (I have a B.A. in criminal justice and psych, so I love this stuff), we reinacted the crime CSI style and tried to find one plausible way it could have been self defense.

In the end, it was unanimous. I don't remember what the guy was sentenced to, and I don't know if they ever caught him, but there's a small part of me that expects to see his name back in the news sooner or later.

 

And his first stop will be YOUR HOUSE!

 

Last time I was on duty, I ended up as foreman on a federal case. It was a felon in possession of a gun, and the guy was guilty as all hell. But the evidence wasn't there, and we had to vote not guilty. It sucked.

 

Just noticed on my form that there's a phone number that I am supposed to call the night before reporting, to determine whether you still have to report. I just called. I have been excused from duty. Woo-hoo!

 

I was called last month, second time for me. I went on a Tuesday afternoon - armed with the new Willie Nelson bio - sat there for three hours before they sent us home, telling us we were on standby and would be called if needed. Never called, but that three hours helped me make a real dent in that book.