Hamlette's Soliloquy

No more can I say "nothing interesting ever happens to me." I got selected for jury duty! Yeah...and at this point, I have not slept in 23+ hours...so forgive me if this gets random and incoherent...

I woke up at 7:15pm Sunday night, and went to work as usual (I work 10pm-7am, FYI). I left work about fifteen minutes late, because we're extra-busy gearing up for Dreaded Inventory, which is Wednesday, and which I will now miss, bwahahahahahahaha! I stopped at Starbucks on the way (well, a couple miles out of the way, really) to obtain caffeine and a blueberry scone. Got to the courthouse around 8:30am, and stayed there until 4:30pm.

It was much less scary than I'd expected. Actually, I was the most scared about finding the courthouse, because it's in a town I'm not familiar with. But I found it okay and got a good parking spot. The people there were all really nice, especially the bailiffs. The two bailiffs I interacted with were both ladies who are probably in their upper 60's at least. They and their husbands are bailiffs and sorta split the duties, like one couple will be on duty while we're at the court itself, and the other will be with us at the hotel. Of course, there were policemen around too. The judge seems very sensible and gives a good impression of knowledgability and fairness, without being overly stern. He used words the average Joe Schmoe (and there were lots of them there) could understand. The DA is very businesslike, but pleasant. The Defense Attorney is kindly and personable; not sure if his friendliness is geniuine or calculated, but I could be over-analyzing things.

What maybe surprised me the most is that the defendant was there! I kind of thought he might not be, I'm not sure why. I guess if I was on trial, I'd want to see who would be passing the verdict. He even took notes during the questioning, he didn't just sit there like a lump and scowl or pout or something.

Obviously, I can't tell you any particulars about the case or where it's being tried or any of that. I'm sworn to secrecy, actually and legally. I can tell you that it's not for this county though, but they're getting jurors from this county because there's been publicity about the case in his own county and they don't want that contaminating the jurors, you know? When they swore us in as jurors, we had to raise our right hands and all that, and I felt like I was being sworn in as a deputy sheriff in a Western or something. And what is up with that whole raising of the right hand--where does that come from? What does it really mean/symbolize/etc? I bet Noumenon or Cowboy can tell me...

I'm really really really tired and I think I'm finally dewired enough to go to sleep. I'm going to try to blog about this experience--but nothing about the actual trial of course--every weekend when I'm brought home...