Jury Duty

I forgot to tell you about jury duty! I served on a jury way back in the beginning of April, right before Easter, and I totally forgot to mention it.

It’s not much like TV at all. Which makes sense because most things aren’t like TV at all. On TV, courtrooms are full of beautiful dark wood and dramatic raised platforms for the judge and witnesses and a big jury box on the side. I’ve actually been in one of those nice courtrooms; we finalized our adoption in a TV-style courtroom. My jury service, though, wasn’t in one of those. Our county courthouse is a perfectly nice government building but the courtroom just looks like a conference room. No dark wood anywhere and all the jurors just sat at regular conference tables with very nice office chairs.

This might have been because I was on a grand jury; maybe they save the fancy rooms for other purposes. The grand jury just hears the basic details of a bunch of crimes and decides whether the District Attorney has enough evidence to go forward with the trial. I liked grand jury service because it’s a cool peek into the legal system without the stress of actually deciding someone’s fate.

TV shows always show a bunch of lawyers and their clients attending the grand jury and making arguments but apparently that’s pretty rare. For us, it was just a District Attorney explaining the legal details of, say, burglary or shoplifting and then a cop testifying to the details of the case. We listen to what the cops found, compare it to the definitions the DA gave, and decide whether it all lines up enough to officially go to trial. We each have a big binder full of legal terms and checklists and our job is to see if everything matches up. It’s . . . actually pretty easy.

My husband was on the jury for an actual trial once, a case where a woman’s son stole her pain medication (and sold it to a friend, I think?). It was a quick one-day trial but he had to listen to witnesses and hear arguments from opposing lawyers and actually decide someone’s guilt or innocence. All that sounds way more exciting than my jury service but also way more emotionally difficult.

My ‘on call’ period has ended so I won’t be called in to another jury for quite a while. I’m almost sad about that. It was an interesting experience and everyone on the jury felt this weird camraderie doing this quintessentially American thing. In America (and Canada and a couple other nations influenced by British legal traditions) jury duty feels like a sign of adulthood, learning to be a good citizen, but it turns out most of the world doesn’t do things this way at all. It’s fascinating.

This week, by contrast, was pretty quiet. I finished knitting a scarf but it won’t look like much until I wash and block it. I also received May’s selection for the Morbidly Curious book club. They also sent stickers to decorate my laptop.

We’re just trying to keep ourselves calm and busy without spending much money, hoping for job offers soon. Maybe this week will be our lucky week. Friday is Beltane, after all. Until next time, blessed be.