My Civic Duty

Day 1:

I got the dreaded jury duty summons and had to go today. Guess what? I got sent right to the jurors box for the third time in a row. Of course I got selected to stay also. They didn’t even ask me enough questions to get myself kicked out of the jury. So two out of the last three times I’ve gotten called I have had to serve on the jury. I listened to a guy behind me fidget and fumble for words until he found the right thing to say for the judge to excuse him. The judge and prosecutor grilled him for probably fifteen minutes to see if he could be fair. I guess the judge decided he couldn’t and sent him home. I got asked one question only because I raised my hand in response to one of the generic questions they ask the whole jury pool. Another guy was asked if he could be fair and said ” I’m kind of racist” with the defendant being black he was out of there in seconds. Not me I’m honest and will treat the defendant fairly . I’m there for probably two more days. Well at least it’s a different kind of boredom than my normal job.

Day2:

Back at the courthouse again. We got to go in at 9 o’clock instead of the normal 8AM. That was nice. We { The jury} were whisked into the courtroom and proceedings began almost immediately. The prosecutor presented his case and evidence stuff like detectives, bank investigators, hand writing experts, and forged checks etc. The defendant { who represented himself} at the same time was presenting his rebuttals with stuff like catalogues and pictures of stuff he said he owned but was confiscated by the sheriff’s department, claiming they were basically repossessed. He had presented forged checks for the COD amounts drawn on accounts that didn’t exist any longer for the stuff . So he never owned the items in question.

After the prosecution rested it was his turn to call witnesses. He called the property manager for his rental space whom he had also given a bad check. How he expected her to help him I have no idea. He complained that they changed the locks at the request of the sheriff, it was either change the locks or they broke the door down. He said he couldn’t get his stuff. Of course they changed the lock the space was full of stolen property. So basically he presented absolutely no defense. When we were given the case to deliberate there was no doubt of his guilt. We took maybe a half an hour to decide his guilt. It was that clear cut.

After we returned the verdict the judge came in to speak with us. He told us that this guy had fired three attorneys before and I quote ” He decided to shoot himself in the head” by defending himself. He also said that if he had taken the original plea deal his first lawyer had gotten for him he would probably be out on the street now. The crime happened in 2004. The judged said he would have gotten about 2 years.They had been trying to get this guy tryed for about three years now. Now he would receive about 8 years. I once heard a saying that went something like this. Anyone who represents himself in a court of law has a fool for a client. I guess this guy proved that.