Jury Duty
2006-09-20 10:31AM PDT/Home
I was summoned to the Palo Alto Courthouse last Thursday. Jury duty. I made it there in time after a crazy ride home on my bike from work. Hey I had at least 30 seconds to spare to catch the train I needed. But of course, you go like crazy to make it on time, only to then sit around for an hour or so waiting to get called to the court room.
The case we were being picked for was an interesting one, it was an online predator case. They didn't exactly say what the case was about specifically, but it was starting to look like our defendant had the misfortune to be online chatting with an undercover police officer who was acting the part of a 13 year old girl. Strike up, "Bad boy, bad boy, whatchagonna do, whatchagonna do when they come for you...".
My misfortune was sitting in front of two retired gentlemen who complained bitterly the entire time about how long this was taking. They've got nothing better to do but play golf, and still they complain. The whole jury selection process seems like it goes in phases. First we have to listen to all the selected retired people list off all their ailments, and how they're not going to be be able to focus for more than 15 minutes at a time. Or that their prostate makes them pee every x minutes. Oy. Then, since it was becoming sort of clear that sex and a 13 year old girl might be involved, all the jurors who couldn't stomach this idea begged out. One or two my-startup-will-fail-if-I'm-not-there excuses and we were done weeding out those willing to pretty much debase themselves to get out of jury duty. It's painful to listen to this stuff.
The prosecuting attorney was sharp as nails. Each time we walked into the courtroom she watched us all intently. The defense attorney ignored us. Questioning the jury she was called to the bench several times, I took that to mean she was pushing it. Good for her. The defense attorney, he didn't appear as sharp. If I was the one relying on his services, I would have been seriously upset. Or maybe he was playing a brilliant strategy I'm just not seeing?
He went into into a long speech about the law, and how we don't convict people just for being two headed monsters, we convict them for breaking the law. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, okay, that might be true, but thanks for painting your client as a two headed monster for me. But then I guess that part is a forgone conclusion? And he didn't even toss the juror with a cop friend who had done ride-alongs. If this case is going to come down to a question of entrapment, and that's where it was looking like it was going given the two-headed monster speech, at least bump the ride-along buddy. Come on man!
I never was picked. So that was it for me. I saw maybe a bit more of the human nature of my fellow valley dwellers than I would have liked, but it did make for an interesting afternoon. My mother-in-law is a public defender, I don't know how she does this stuff on a daily basis.