No Jury Duty for Me Today

"fink stinger" (finkstinger)
11/14/2013 at 10:03 • Filed to: None

Yay for being all lawyerish on the lawyers during my !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! yesterday. They didn't like a couple of the answers on my questionnaire and it only got worse (for them) when we discussed them for clarification. I felt both proud and a little bit icky at the same time. A lot like swamp buggy racing.

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DISCUSSION (6)

Mattbob > fink stinger
11/14/2013 at 10:13

any more to the story? I'm bored at work.

fink stinger > Mattbob
11/14/2013 at 10:43

Hope you are not talking about the swamp buggy image, since it is just one I found that looks like fun.

As for the golden question that set me free, it had to do with whether I would believe the word of a police officer over anyone else merely because he was a police officer. I know THAT discussion is guaranteed to turn insane on any interwebz discussion, so I didn't really expand on it. I chose my words VERY carefully when explaining my position. That position didn't sit so well with the defense attorneys.

Mattbob > fink stinger
11/14/2013 at 10:48

gotcha. Yeah, I was referring to what got you out of it. I could see how that could turn into a big deal, especially with an engineering mindset. Us engineers never assume... It's weird.

Mattbob > fink stinger
11/14/2013 at 10:52

I was referring to what got you out of duty. I could see how that question would turn into a big deal. Us engineers never assume stuff, that tends to throw a wrench in things.

Nothing > fink stinger
11/14/2013 at 11:59

Congrats (?) on getting out of jury duty. (I guess you didn't really get out of it, as you did do your duty and appear as directed.) As someone that has sat at the defense table, wrongly accused, I can tell you that waiting on those deliberations is a feeling that can not even be described.

Going through jury selection, defense attorneys don't want someone that's predisposed to agreeing that a police officer is inherently more believable than a citizen. That immediately shows a bias to the prosecution. So I can see why you were excused. Hopefully your removal was for cause, and not a wasted peremptory challenge by the defense.

fink stinger > Nothing
11/15/2013 at 09:58

Thanks (?), I guess. I can only hope that the outcome was fair, even if it was wholly unfair that you had to suffer through the process to get there. If so, kudos on your council and the system for working as intended.

It would be extraordinarily easy for me to get selected every time for jury duty. I am educated, logical (engineer), non-prejudiced and don't have any issues with authority. That is what got me onto the jury a couple years ago. It was interesting and I don't have any regrets at all about the time I spent, even though I felt the burden to me vastly outweighed the importance of the case. I learned quite a bit about the judicial process, got to meet new people and heard an interesting story.

It was fortunate that, at the time, there was a little bit of leeway in my work schedule and we weren't pushing hard on any time-critical projects. Now, I am at a new job (in fact, new enough that this summons was a reschedule that was originally for my third day on the job...right during orientation) with some extremely important and time-critical projects. Getting sucked into a week or two of duty at this point would be a disaster for everyone on the team.

So, yes, I understand the importance of being able to select a fair jury and believe in the process. I like to feel like I am as fair and open-minded as I can be, but at the same time I probably do have some bias in a multiple offender heroin and oxycontin dealing case. My mother lost her business (and nearly went to prison) because her business partner funneled what was supposed to be employee payroll tax payments into supporting his wife's oxycontin habit as well as his hookers and gambling. And I do have cops in the family.

So, not a big stretch that happens to work out in my favor. I hope that kid gets a fair trial. I also hope that if he is indeed guilty, that he gets a good hard ditch-digging sentence.