Nearly Number Six
Or I had jury duty and all I got was the judges cold. (Week of 5/22/06)
I didn't have to go in on the first day, but had to call back Monday night to see if I would have to go in for jury duty on Tuesday. I did. Fortunately I had to go the the main courthouse in Santa Cruz instead of driving all the way down to Watsonville. The only problem with the main courthouse, is the parking, or serious lack of. But since the main courthouse is located in downtown Santa Cruz, and I work in downtown Santa Cruz, I used my parking permit for my usual garage instead of getting there two hours early to fight for a parking spot.
The first thing the judge said when we were finally showed into the court room was that he had a cold, and didn't want to give it to any of us, so he would try to get through this as quickly as possible. Turned out that was wishful thinking.
My only experience in determining if a lawyer is any good or not come from tv, movies and books, but if I ever need one, I don't think I'd hire this defense attorney. During his questioning of the first round of potential jurors, he let slip something I'm sure he didn't want to until the actual trial had started. You could sense about half the people in the room realize they had just been handed a get out of jury duty free card.
So fast forward to about 3:15 that afternoon, and the pool of potential jurors is starting to getting pretty thin. The two attorneys dismiss 7 more people, and the clerk finally calls my name, for one of the two seats in the jury box. (Juror #6) There was one other new person besides me in the jury box, and 5 new people in the alternate seats. The defense attorney starts asking questions of the new batch - but spends almost all of his time questioning a couple of the potential alternates, and uses up all his time before he asks me a single question. The judge denied his request for more time to question me. The prosecutor asks her questions (and does get to me). Then the defense attorney dismisses the one of the potential alternates, and the the prosecution passes. Then the defense attorney thanked and dismissed me. I heard the prosecution pass again and the defense dismiss another person as I was leaving the court room. I was done around 3:45, and walked out of the courthouse and saw it was a gorgeous day, and decided to go home instead of going into work for an hour or two.
Thursday and Friday, and had a cold.
I found a couple of interesting articles this week. I'll post those in a little bit, during commercial breaks of The 4400.
I didn't have to go in on the first day, but had to call back Monday night to see if I would have to go in for jury duty on Tuesday. I did. Fortunately I had to go the the main courthouse in Santa Cruz instead of driving all the way down to Watsonville. The only problem with the main courthouse, is the parking, or serious lack of. But since the main courthouse is located in downtown Santa Cruz, and I work in downtown Santa Cruz, I used my parking permit for my usual garage instead of getting there two hours early to fight for a parking spot.
The first thing the judge said when we were finally showed into the court room was that he had a cold, and didn't want to give it to any of us, so he would try to get through this as quickly as possible. Turned out that was wishful thinking.
My only experience in determining if a lawyer is any good or not come from tv, movies and books, but if I ever need one, I don't think I'd hire this defense attorney. During his questioning of the first round of potential jurors, he let slip something I'm sure he didn't want to until the actual trial had started. You could sense about half the people in the room realize they had just been handed a get out of jury duty free card.
So fast forward to about 3:15 that afternoon, and the pool of potential jurors is starting to getting pretty thin. The two attorneys dismiss 7 more people, and the clerk finally calls my name, for one of the two seats in the jury box. (Juror #6) There was one other new person besides me in the jury box, and 5 new people in the alternate seats. The defense attorney starts asking questions of the new batch - but spends almost all of his time questioning a couple of the potential alternates, and uses up all his time before he asks me a single question. The judge denied his request for more time to question me. The prosecutor asks her questions (and does get to me). Then the defense attorney dismisses the one of the potential alternates, and the the prosecution passes. Then the defense attorney thanked and dismissed me. I heard the prosecution pass again and the defense dismiss another person as I was leaving the court room. I was done around 3:45, and walked out of the courthouse and saw it was a gorgeous day, and decided to go home instead of going into work for an hour or two.
Thursday and Friday, and had a cold.
I found a couple of interesting articles this week. I'll post those in a little bit, during commercial breaks of The 4400.
posted by Brian at 8:44:00 PM
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