Done with Jury Duty

I finished jury duty, and I am ready to get back to a more normal life.  This was my first experience on jury duty.  I have always gotten out of it in the past – easily done when you work at a startup company.  But courts in Washington State are making it harder to get out of jury duty, and I felt like I really could go this time without too much impact at work.  So I went.

I had heard that a lot of time is spent waiting to see if you get put in a jury pool.  I brought a book and was expecting a nice long read.  Not so!  I was juror number 9 on the first case.  This meant that I was in the jury box, and the only way I was going to not be on the jury was if I was excused for cause, or if the defense or prosecution excused me without cause (they get so many of these per trial).  Of the 28 jurors in the jury pool, probably a dozen were excused before the final 13 were set.  I was still in the jury box when they were done.

At the end of the trial, they randomly picked a name from the 13, and this person became the alternate and was excused (to be on call if needed).  Our jury turned out to be a great group of people.  We spent a lot of time going over the instructions, talking about what they meant, and especially debating the meaning of laws and definitions given to us as part of our 30 page closing instructions.  Everyone took the job seriously, and we all made sure everyone was satisfied before we moved on.  I don’t think it could have gone better.  It was our system working the way it was designed to work.

 I ended up glad that I had the experience.  I wouldn’t hesitate in the future to serve on another jury.  And for those curious George’s out there, we found the defendant guilty on both counts.  But I’m not going to say anymore about it.

Now it’s back to real life.  And my first assignment – figure out how to get rid of the three pounds I somehow put on eating cafeteria food and other junk during the week.