Jury Duty
Last week I had the privilidge of doing jury duty.
Some people probly wouldn't call it a privilidge but i thought it was. It made me feel like i was contributing to society. Even though i didn't do much and the part i played was small, i've done my bit - for another year at least anyway!
I got my summons for jury duty to be in court on the 15th March. pfft yea right. My hearing got cancelled or something and it wasn't til the 16th that i was in court. All the anticipation building up just got worse.
Eventually the day came and i arrived at the court at 9am. You go into a room with about 100 other people and have to wait around all day. It's crazy. They split you into groups and off you go into an empty court room to familiarise yourself with what a court room is like because i suppose they hope or anticipate that you've never been in one before - i haven't. They told us that this case we were all 'up' for would go for 3 weeks, opposed to the day before where they were up for a crazy 16 week case. CRAZY!!!
Then you go back to the waiting room and do some more waiting. You watch a video about jury duty with some lamo actors and you just keep on waiting. There were a few odd characters to say the least. A wide mix of society. One creepy surfy guy was trying to hit on another girl the whole time geez!!! Up until this point it's all pretty novel really.
The moment comes when they march you all off to court, this time into an occupied room. We all went into the same room, so in this small court room are the accused, defendants, judge, you name it and then 100 of us! There was only one court case on that day!!
For the first time in my life, in true old school style, gentlemen were made to give up their seats for the women. It weirded me out because hey, men and women should be equal, after all we're all created no better than each other, mere humans. But it was nice.
Once we were seated, they outlined the case (two brothers, very ordinary and respectable looking, who had been charged with the intent of murder, they didn't actually kill the guy but got very close to it!), then they read about two pages worth of associated names to the case. It's at that point that you have to declare if you know anyone on the case, if so, you get excused from the case. They then ask the accused to face the potential jurors (us) so that we can inspect them incase we know them.
For me, this was really hard, having to look them in the eyes. This will sound crazy but i felt bad for them. I know, you're thinking, 'you're a weirdo, they almost killed someone' but they just looked like two ordinary guys about my age who had got themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and possibly committed a crime. They honestly reminded me of two naughty but innocent little boys. The time that the judge gave us to inspect them was far too long. Ok, yep, they've possibly done something horribly wrong but it was humiliating for them and by looking at them i knew how humiliated they were. I can hear you saying that they're criminals but goshhh....ya had to be there! All i could do was glance at them and then look away, i couldn't possibly keep looking at them, it was embarressing.
The time came for the jury to be selected. This was particularly nervewracking!!! They choose 12 people to be on the jury, so off they start by pulling 12 people out of a ballot (hat), thankfully my number wasn't called. Once they've got your heart racing and have chosen the 12, the accused is then free to challenge the selected jury. That means that judging purely by what you look like and roughly your age, they can say they don't want that person on their case, it's really nothing personal though. The first time they went through they picked out about 4 or 5 poeple to sit back down. So your heart starts racing again as they select another 4 or 5 to replace those people. They're then free to challenge those newly selected people. They did. they challenged another 3. Off your heart goes again! This time they challenged 1 more person and the jury was selected.
RIGMAROLE!!!!!!!
My heart was pounding that fast and that hard that i thought all the systems in my body were about to shut down and i would die. It didn't happen though. I was so nervous and scared of being on the case that all i could think of to do was to pray for the whole thing. So i prayed for the accused (God have absolute mercy), i prayed for the defendants, i prayed for the jury, i prayed for the judge, i prayed for the witnesses to come, i prayed for the prosecutors and during the whole process, i prayed that my name would not be pulled out of the ballot (what a selfish prayer)! Thankfully God answered the last prayer. I couldn't imagine being on the case for 3 weeks and not being able to share about it with anyone but the other jurors! I went away an emotional wreck as it was, goshhhhh what's wrong with me?!
I just felt so sad that those young guys had gone and wasted their whole lives. It made me feel physically ill to know that they'd possibly be spending some of their best years behind bars. Society is so unwell, and it makes me so sad!!! Everywhere you turn you can read something about hate or violence or aggravation. Very rarely do we ever read anything about love and joyous things and how often do you read something in the newspaper that is wonderful and joyous and flick past it to something more interesting to do with stuff that's wrong with the world. Make sense?
Jury duty was a novelty up until i entered the court room and was hit in the face with the reality of it all. It's not a tv show, it's not a movie, it's someone's real life, someone's pain and anguish for the mistakes they've made. My name is off the roll for another year and i pray that i don't get called up again for longer than that. Having to face up to the shape that our world is in isn't fun but ignoring it is probably worse. There are some serious problems out there and even though it's not really fine to go on being oblivious to everything, stuff like jury duty is really important for us to see the reasons we need to be sharing God's message of love to his people.
RARRRRRRRRRRR.......the evil in society is sooo bothersome?! Be gone before someone drops a house on you too!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tink xoxo
Some people probly wouldn't call it a privilidge but i thought it was. It made me feel like i was contributing to society. Even though i didn't do much and the part i played was small, i've done my bit - for another year at least anyway!
I got my summons for jury duty to be in court on the 15th March. pfft yea right. My hearing got cancelled or something and it wasn't til the 16th that i was in court. All the anticipation building up just got worse.
Eventually the day came and i arrived at the court at 9am. You go into a room with about 100 other people and have to wait around all day. It's crazy. They split you into groups and off you go into an empty court room to familiarise yourself with what a court room is like because i suppose they hope or anticipate that you've never been in one before - i haven't. They told us that this case we were all 'up' for would go for 3 weeks, opposed to the day before where they were up for a crazy 16 week case. CRAZY!!!
Then you go back to the waiting room and do some more waiting. You watch a video about jury duty with some lamo actors and you just keep on waiting. There were a few odd characters to say the least. A wide mix of society. One creepy surfy guy was trying to hit on another girl the whole time geez!!! Up until this point it's all pretty novel really.
The moment comes when they march you all off to court, this time into an occupied room. We all went into the same room, so in this small court room are the accused, defendants, judge, you name it and then 100 of us! There was only one court case on that day!!
For the first time in my life, in true old school style, gentlemen were made to give up their seats for the women. It weirded me out because hey, men and women should be equal, after all we're all created no better than each other, mere humans. But it was nice.
Once we were seated, they outlined the case (two brothers, very ordinary and respectable looking, who had been charged with the intent of murder, they didn't actually kill the guy but got very close to it!), then they read about two pages worth of associated names to the case. It's at that point that you have to declare if you know anyone on the case, if so, you get excused from the case. They then ask the accused to face the potential jurors (us) so that we can inspect them incase we know them.
For me, this was really hard, having to look them in the eyes. This will sound crazy but i felt bad for them. I know, you're thinking, 'you're a weirdo, they almost killed someone' but they just looked like two ordinary guys about my age who had got themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and possibly committed a crime. They honestly reminded me of two naughty but innocent little boys. The time that the judge gave us to inspect them was far too long. Ok, yep, they've possibly done something horribly wrong but it was humiliating for them and by looking at them i knew how humiliated they were. I can hear you saying that they're criminals but goshhh....ya had to be there! All i could do was glance at them and then look away, i couldn't possibly keep looking at them, it was embarressing.
The time came for the jury to be selected. This was particularly nervewracking!!! They choose 12 people to be on the jury, so off they start by pulling 12 people out of a ballot (hat), thankfully my number wasn't called. Once they've got your heart racing and have chosen the 12, the accused is then free to challenge the selected jury. That means that judging purely by what you look like and roughly your age, they can say they don't want that person on their case, it's really nothing personal though. The first time they went through they picked out about 4 or 5 poeple to sit back down. So your heart starts racing again as they select another 4 or 5 to replace those people. They're then free to challenge those newly selected people. They did. they challenged another 3. Off your heart goes again! This time they challenged 1 more person and the jury was selected.
RIGMAROLE!!!!!!!
My heart was pounding that fast and that hard that i thought all the systems in my body were about to shut down and i would die. It didn't happen though. I was so nervous and scared of being on the case that all i could think of to do was to pray for the whole thing. So i prayed for the accused (God have absolute mercy), i prayed for the defendants, i prayed for the jury, i prayed for the judge, i prayed for the witnesses to come, i prayed for the prosecutors and during the whole process, i prayed that my name would not be pulled out of the ballot (what a selfish prayer)! Thankfully God answered the last prayer. I couldn't imagine being on the case for 3 weeks and not being able to share about it with anyone but the other jurors! I went away an emotional wreck as it was, goshhhhh what's wrong with me?!
I just felt so sad that those young guys had gone and wasted their whole lives. It made me feel physically ill to know that they'd possibly be spending some of their best years behind bars. Society is so unwell, and it makes me so sad!!! Everywhere you turn you can read something about hate or violence or aggravation. Very rarely do we ever read anything about love and joyous things and how often do you read something in the newspaper that is wonderful and joyous and flick past it to something more interesting to do with stuff that's wrong with the world. Make sense?
Jury duty was a novelty up until i entered the court room and was hit in the face with the reality of it all. It's not a tv show, it's not a movie, it's someone's real life, someone's pain and anguish for the mistakes they've made. My name is off the roll for another year and i pray that i don't get called up again for longer than that. Having to face up to the shape that our world is in isn't fun but ignoring it is probably worse. There are some serious problems out there and even though it's not really fine to go on being oblivious to everything, stuff like jury duty is really important for us to see the reasons we need to be sharing God's message of love to his people.
RARRRRRRRRRRR.......the evil in society is sooo bothersome?! Be gone before someone drops a house on you too!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tink xoxo
posted by Unknown at
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
2 Comments:
That was a really cool blog Alisha!
The way you wrote it really made it feel like we were in the courtroom with you! (see! you are such a talented writer!)
But yea! That was just a very powerful, very thought provoking blog that really does make you realise how much pain this world is in and how much prayer it needs.
Thanks again for the reminder.
By
Anonymous, at March 22, 2006
Yay! Good post! I love court talk and law talk and moral talk and criminal law talk! It's just like being at uni! Huzzah! There's so much more to the law than you realise, like why is one thing a crime and not another, and why should certain 'Christian morals' be against the law and not others, and who has the right to make law and decide if someone is guilty or not. You were a piece of the wonderful puzzle called criminal justice. Ooo... it's all so exciting!
Once again, good post! :D
By
Anonymous, at March 24, 2006
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