> This week I had jury duty from Wednesday the 27th until about 5 PM today. I was selected for the only trial that was being started this week (it seems the judges like to avoid the holidays) and we managed to wrap up everything fairly quickly. On Wednesday they had an orientation session for about 150 prospective jurors. Then in the afternoon, they randomly chose about 50 names to go to the courtroom. Of course, I was one of them. The judge then went through a series of selection questions and whittled the number down to 12 jurors (of course, I was one of them) and 3 alternates. That took up a large part of the afternoon, as there were various complicated procedures involved. Then they dismissed us and told us to come back Thursday morning.
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> On Thursday the main part of trial started. Opening arguments took about an hour to ninety minutes, and then we heard testimony from four witnesses. They managed to get in half the way through closing arguments (the defense attorney was interrupted right in the middle of her argument).
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> This morning, they finished off the closing arguments. Then the judge gave us instructions pertaining to the various laws that were involved in the trial and how we were to carry about our deliberation. The bailiff took us to a locked room, where the debating began. It went fairly quickly, I suppose, but I hadn't had jury duty before so I didn't know what to expect beforehand. I think it took about four hours in total. We just barely had time to come to our conclusions on verdicts (although on three counts we had a hung jury) before the court closing time. Afterwards, one of the attorneys told us that this had been the last trial to start and last verdicts to be reached in the San Diego County Superior Court system in the millenium. That was pretty interesting, I thought.
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> Overall, aside from the inconveniences of commuting and schedule changes, this was a very enjoyable experience for me. I learned a lot about virtually every aspect of jury trial operations. Now I'm exempt from jury duty service for three years. If I hadn't been selected, I'd be back in the selection pool for next year, undoubtedly.

Over a 40-year period, I've served on two grand juries and two federal juries. One of those was a civil case and one of them was criminal. The grand jury (county level) was $8 a day, but the daily rate in federal court was $40. I also found them to be very educational, and the two trial juries netted me enough to buy a motorscooter. I also got to help put away a dispicable criminal. The civil case was two women who claimed that they were being harrassed on the job. They probably were, but they had no evidence, so this time the boss won. I didn't feel really good about that.

Have you ever wondered what you would have done if you had been on the O. J. case? I think I would have had to let him go. When there is that much tampered evidence, there is a reasonable doubt, and that calls for "not guilty" no matter what you believe.

I also watched the 2000 election court cases. (Year 2000, not 2000 cases.) I lost a lot of respect for the court system. I wish some of those cases could have been heard before a jury. I don't know how they would have come out, but I'd feel better.

Howard