Jury

  I have been called for Jury Duty twice.  I believe that it is one's civic duty to serve on a jury, even if the pay is terrible.  It can also be incredibly boring to sit on a jury and listen to things that you had rather not.  They really should prescribe caffeine in hunks to be on jury duty.  Especially, if an attorney wants to ask the same question of a witness 50 times to see if they will tell something different than the first 49 times.  

 The first case I was on involved a man who fell out of a tree with a chainsaw and broke both legs.  He was suing his neighbor, because his neighbor's small son was holding a rope which was tied to the tree to help steady it.  In turn, the man with the chainsaw could work without the tree moving.  Well, a gust of wind came up which caused the boy to struggle with the rope.  The man lost his footing and fell to the ground.  We saw very gross pictures of a surgical procedure on the man's legs along with pins and rods in his bones.  Because the child was a minor, his father was the one being sued for letting his son hold the rope.  I felt sorry for both parties, and especially for the bad blood these neighbors would have as long as they lived next door to one another.  After the attorneys did their summations, we retired to the jury room to deliberate.  When we got back behind the closed door, we started laughing.  How could a man sue for damages, when he was up a tree with a chainsaw and expecting a 9-year-old boy to keep him from falling?  And, the neighbor couldn't control a windy day.  So, we were ready to find in favor of the neighbor and his son.  Just as we were ready to deliver our verdict, we got word that the two parties had agreed on a settlement.  They shook hands and called it a day.

 The second case I served on was about a man charged with speeding through Five Points and driving drunk.  The police had observed a man driving 60mph.  When the officer stopped the car, he smelled beer on the driver's breath.  The officer asked the man to do a breathalyzer test, but the man refused citing his constitutional right to privacy.  A passenger in the car was also caught urinating behind a business, when the police car rolled up on them.  The man said he had been to a bar with a friend.  He knew he would be the designated driver, so he had non-alcoholic beer.  He was driving fast, because his friend needed to find a bathroom, and he didn't want him to go in his car.  It made perfect sense.  Who hadn't been in that situation before?  We believed the driver and found him Not Guilty.  Another issue about this case was that the I had been to school with the Prosecutor.  When the judge asked if anyone knew a party in the case, I raised my hand.  The Prosecutor and Defense  both said I was okay to be on the jury.  I think my friend thought I would find for him and not the defendant.  Sorry, Bob.  

 And then, there's this.  After the trial was over, I was talking to a co-worker about the case.  He had a side job of working as a bouncer in the bar, where this guy said he was.  My friend told me that the bar didn't serve non-alcoholic beer.  The defendant had lied.  Had the prosecution looked into that fact, the defendant would have been found guilty.  Oh well.  Sorry, Bob.