I’d have totally gotten you off dude ~ just sayin’…

I sat down to write a pithy, insightful and entertaining post about my experiences in jury duty. Instead I got sidetracked installing and configuring Digsby in my never ending attempt to manage multiple email accounts, ims and social networking sites. Not that I have any real hopes that this will help much, but I’ll give it a try. The point being that instead of the potentially well planned post, you’re going to get this quickly thrown together crap because I’m getting tired, I’m writing this Wednesday night and hey, tomorrow is sushi Thursday on an actual Thursday!

So yeah, if you’ve been within a hundred miles of my blog in the last two months you may remember me mentioning that I had to go to jury duty on Wednesday the 7th. As I may already have mentioned that meant having to be downtown by 8am, on the bus no less. For those of you with, um, actual jobs, shut up because the tragically unemployed like to sleep in when they can. So yes, my adventure began when I stood in the dark on a street corner (no I didn’t make any cash) waiting for the metro bus.

I mentioned yesterday that Bryan deserves a frackin’ medal for doing this every day and today I really really mean it. Boy, the freaks one sees on the bus. I couldn’t stop staring at the woman with her tiny tiny ipod and her massive, cover half her head, must have been from the 70’s headphones. Wow, you must really really be into your music or you haven’t seen all those smaller headphones that have been available for like 30 years now. Sure I groove on my noise cancelling headphones too, but smaller is really better sometimes. Like most anyone I do enjoy a dick slapping me in my face from time to time, but not on a crowded smelly bus and certainly not yours sir. I understand that there were no seats left, but you really didn’t need to stand there with your crotchal area less than two inches from my face, you could have turned a bit perhaps. I’m just thankful that you had showered recently since I couldn’t smell your crotch through those thin pants.

I arrived at the county courthouse to begin my adventure in dispensing justice, not to be confused with prison justice which I have asked my brother to dispense on my behalf in the past. (my brother is a sherrif’s deputy in a prison) First we got to sign in and then fill out some forms and then sit and sit and sit and sit and sit in a room that felt like the 9th circle of hell, temperature wise and scenery wise. The dregs of society surrounded me and I realized that anyone who looked like me – not homeless, not 873 years old and not a drunken mouth breathing mess – was smart enough to get the hell out of this torture. We were treated to two different speakers and a movie that all told us how we were performing a vital role in our democracy and blah fucking blah. Then we got to sit and wait some more while the judges all decided how many of the 8,573 people crammed into that room they need in their respective court rooms. Did I mention that the jury room was hot? No, well it was, like sweat running down my back and pits hot, hot like I was sure I was going to start stinking at any moment. Heads up King County, need to save money on the budget next year? TURN DOWN THE DAMN HEAT!!!!!

The first group of losers potential jurors were called for a jury selection. That left approximately 9,334 people left in the room and the courthouse staff decided that they didn’t need all of us. Apparently quite a few of the cases had been settled without needing a jury. They didn’t say how they were settled, but I’m guessing that it was by the defendant throwing themselves out of a window to avoid the heat in that building. Did I mention it was hot in there? So the computer spit out a list of about 7,394 names and they read those off saying they could go home and be back today at 8:45am. Guess who was the next to last name – yes me and who says I don’t ever have anything good happen to me? The courthouse staff jokingly said that if you didn’t want to go home they’d put you back in the pool and send someone else home in your place. Well I got all the way out to the street and realized, what the bloody hell did I have to do other than jury duty? It’s not like I’m discovering the cure to cancer in my home office or anything. Might as well just stick it out and see what happens, get good karma and I was out of bed anyway.

So yeah, stupid stupid me turned down the offer to go home early and was “randomly” selected for the next pool of jurors. We went upstairs to a courtroom to find a hottie mchottie on trial for selling X. The questioning took until almost 3pm and I just have to say that the gallery seats in the courtroom are so comfortable. The only thing that would have felt better on my ass for hours on end was perhaps a belt sander with course grit at high speed. It was interesting to watch the attorneys and the other potential jurors. It was really easy to pick out the people who were trying to get off the case and the attorneys were relatively transparent in their questioning.

When the attorney asks if you think that the defendent is automatically guilty just because he’s been accused of a crime you shouldn’t answer yes. Unless you know, you’re a retard or you’re trying to get off the jury. I was so nervous that the defense attorney would ask me what my initial impressions of the defendent were, which she did of several people. My response, being under oath and all, would have been “he’s tall and kinda cute, I’d fuck him”. Not sure how that would go over…

Since it was a drug case the majority of the questions were about your feelings, perceptions and experience with illegal drugs, drug users/dealers and any crime associated with those. When the defense asked if any of the panel had someone in their lives negatively affected by drugs over half of the 40 people on our panel raised their hands. Am I really that sheltered, I really felt like I was in the minority today. Then there were the people who responded to the question about a negative or positive perception of the police in general. I was one of several people who raised their hands and by the time it got to me I’d heard all these sob stories about police brutality and who can police the police. I was the only one with a positive perception, obviously, and my statement that my dad was a retired cop who had dealt with undercover narcotics investigations probably sealed my fate.

Actually what sealed my fate was that I was juror #30 out of 40 and they only needed 13 of us. When the jury was empaneled they would still have needed to dismiss 10 more people to get me in the box. I’m kind of glad I wasn’t empaneled, even though it was supposed to only be a one day trial. I’m honestly not sure that all drugs need to be illegal and I have a hard time with the idea that this is something we need to be spending so much money and time on. Aren’t there better things for our police and courts to be focusing on?

When we got back to the jury room they informed us that we were done and didn’t need to come back today. That was the best news of the day because that means I get to have sushi Thursday today, on an actual Thursday and for the first time in weeks and weeks and eons and years. So at about 12pst, be extremely jealous of me and my sushi buddy S as we prepare to gorge ourselves at the altar of the sushi!

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