Jury Duty.

I actually had jury duty a couple weeks ago.

It wasn't the first time I'd gotten a notice in the mail, but it was the first time I actually had to go in.  The only other times I'd gotten notice, I'd call the day before, hear that my group had been released, throw the card in the trash, and go on with my life.

This time I had to drive all the way down to the Phoenix Superior Court, where I had my fingers crossed that I would still be sent home.  Most everyone I have talked to has never actually had to do jury duty. Supposedly most cases never make it to court.  Most defendants plea bargain out at the last minute. That's what I hear anyway.

So this case made it to court, and out of the 50 of us potential jurors, they weeded us down to 8.  Eight.

They were asking all sorts of questions trying to weed us out and I was even honest in telling them about my brush with the law 20 years ago, hoping that that would disqualify me, but apparently not.

Fortunately it only lasted 3 days, and it wasn't that bad.  Sort of interesting actually.  One day was the jury selection, one day was the actual trial, and there was almost a whole day of deliberation.

Basically we just had to decide whether some guy was a drug dealer, or just a drug user.  They busted this guy with eleven little baggies of meth, and a couple thousand dollars both tucked away in his wallet, and shoved in his pockets. 

Seven out of eight of us were pretty convinced that he was guilty, but one girl was a holdout.  Her reasoning was that the guy didn't have a weapon on him.  Apparently her boyfriend is a dealer, and his brothers are dealers, and his dad is a meth dealer, and all the drug dealers she knows carry weapons, and the cops were just out to get this guy.

Uhhh....

Ummm. Okay. Wow. Sure.  Well then...

Anyway, she eventually "changed her mind."  I think she just wanted to go home.

It was still fairly mentally exhausting.  Fascinating, but exhausting.  

Once upon a time I wanted to be a lawyer, and then after a wildly successful stint with that, I'd become a judge.  When my junior high organized it's judicial branch of government, I was in the front of the line to sign up.  We mostly just handed out detentions to open and shut cases, but each quarter I got to particpate in a different aspect of court- Clerk, bailiff, lawyer, judge.  It was awesome.

But I wasn't digging this so much.  It wasn't the time I had to spend, It was only three days after all, and my kids are all in school, so it was only a minor inconvenience. 

And everyone was super nice.  I really liked the judge.  She was really nice.  I guess in my head I was thinking that to compete in such a historically and probably predominantly man's world, all the women judges are "Judge Judy" clones, but I probably couldn't have been more off base.

I just really hated having this one man's fate in my hands.  I still think he was guilty, but while it felt very black and white, and my conscious is clear, believe it or not I wish the decision were harder.  It's not like he had his life in our hands, he wasn't going to death row or anything, but it just felt like it shouldn't be so easy.  Does that make sense?  And there were questions that I wish could have been answered.-

Although they are required to provide no defense, and there's that whole "Innocent until proven guilty" thing, and we aren't supposed to hold a lack of defense against them, I really wished he would have given us something, other than "Nobody actually saw me sell anything..."  Why did he have all that money in his pockets? If not for drugs, then what?  Rent? Child support? Sick wife?

Why was nobody there to support him?  Does he have a family?  Where are they? He needed a translator, (I think he spoke only Spanish) so was he alone because anyone who loves him is far away?  Was it because the actual incident happened five years ago, and there's nobody left?  

And while we are on the subject, how come it takes five years for these things to come to court?  What has this guy been doing for the past five years?  Sitting in a cell, or out dealing more drugs? (I say that because I am assuming he was guilty)

Why did he never once look over at us?  Did his lawyer tell him not to? Was he afraid of what he'd see in our eyes, or what we'd see in his, or was he so arrogant that he didn't need to acknowledge us? 

Anyway, I'm kinda glad I never followed that career path to be a judge.  I wonder how jaded I would be after years of this kind of stuff.  I'm no Mother Teresa, or Pollyanna or Maria from the Sound of Music, and I've been accused of being quite the cynic, but I think deep down I wanted this guy to be innocent. Just a stupid addict who needs help, not some monster preying on stupid addicts who need help.