Jury Duty

Here's a little piece of advice...when you get the letter saying that your time is up and you have to report for jury duty, check the letter to see if they give you the option to go to a different courthouse. I was called to Cambridge, and I asked to switch to Concord. I also asked to reschedule because the original date was during our vacation. The rescheduled date was today. There was no traffic between here and Concord, and the courthouse actually has a parking lot! There were only 20 potential jurors. The judge spent a lot of time with us early in the morning to explain what was required of us and the types of cases we might hear (DUI, possession of small amounts of drugs, possibly battery - Concord is a real hotbed of criminal activity). When we were finally called to the courtroom around 11, the judge explained that there would be no jury cases today...that all but one of the cases had been settled or dismissed. The one remaining case would be decided by the judge without a jury. He repeated several times that it wasn't a waste of our time to sit in the jury pool room and wait, because without the pressure of the jury in the next room the cases would not have been settled or dismissed.

I was actually a little disappointed that there were no jury trials after sitting around for 3 hours, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder why anyone would think I'd be better at deciding guilt or innocence than a judge. I don't think I'm much different from the rest of the potential "peers" but I had already convicted the defendants that I saw waiting around the courthouse before I even got to the jury room. It was obvious who the defendants were because they were in such contrast with the attorneys. The attorneys all wore suits and had combed their hair this morning. The defendants were wearing their best t-shirts and mostly-clean jeans. I guess it's lucky for them that I won't be back for 3 years.

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