Our Civic Duty

This past week I had jury duty. I thought that I would like to take a few moments to look back and reflect on this week of my life which I was forced to dedicate to these United States.

I first got the call a little over a year ago. I think when I went in to apply for my passport my name was thrown into the pool and then randomly selected a bit later for jury duty. The problem was that I was in Japan at the time, so I had to delay it until December, but I was taking a class then, so I managed to delay it again until now. I had to go downtown and sit in this huge room along with the other 60-70 poor souls who were called in. When it was time to start, we were shown a video entitled "ALL RISE: Jury Service in Minnesota" which I thought might make a better name for the action shoot-em up courtroom drama sequel to Fargo, but oh well. After that began the waiting.

It was 10am at this point. They call groups of us upstairs to courts based on whether or not we are needed. I guess 80% of cases never get to the point of needing a jury since most are settled before that, but we all need to be there waiting just in case. It eventually became about 3:00pm and I had almost finished an entire book. Then I, along with 23 of my newfound peers were called in upstairs.

We walked into the courtroom and met the two attorneys, judge, defendant, bailiffs, and all those other guys you see on TV. We sat down and the judge explained that this case was about a guy who was accused of stealing a car. Then the lawyers got their chance to ask us a bunch of questions. They went really in depth with some people, especially those who had relatives who were cops, etc, trying to make sure that we could all judge the case unbiased-ly. I told them that I was a recent college graduate and currently unemployed, and when he asked what my major was I gave him the long winded asnwer of "Digital Cinema with a concentration in Animation and a minor in Japanese Language." He flinched a little bit and then responded "Oh. No wonder you're having trouble finding a job."

So I got selected as one of the 14 finalists who had to report back the next morning to hear the case. So I got to get up early and do the whole thing over again on Tuesday. The case was actually not very interesting at all. The car was found stolen, but it had the GPS OnStar system so it was tracked right away, pulled over, and this guy was driving it. He was wearing weird clothes, like a sweater and rain jacket (on a hot sunny day) and black socks pulled over his shoes. That was the testimony of the prosecution's 4 witnesses. The prosecution was then done and when the judge asked the defense to give their argument, the defense just goes "defense rests." and that was it. We were thrown into deliberations which really didn't last to long.

The case was to prove that the car was stolen, this guy was driving it, and he knew that it was stolen. When we began talking about it in the jury room, we decided right away that weird clothing is not evidence or proof of anything, which then left us with nothing to work with. So, we had no choice but to all vote "not guilty."

After that, I got to go home and I didn't need to go in for the rest of the week. I guess I lucked out on that one. And, reflecting on the whole experience, I can say that the trial process is interesting, but I can definitely see why people dread getting called in for Jury Duty. Most of it is waiting in a big waiting room with nothing to do, and then listening to a boring case.

I will write about something more interesting next time. I promise.