jury duty

So this week, I served on a jury in the Circuit Court of Howard County.  It was both my first time being called to jury duty at all as well as my first time actually being on a jury (uh duh).

I don't really want to get into the details of the proceedings or the outcome or anything like that on here, but share a few thoughts on serving.

It's something we sometimes take for granted but ideas like having the option of a jury of one's peers or being innocent until proven guilty or the total burden of proof being on the state are all really fascinating when put into practice in a court.  Of course, all of these ideas doen't necessarily translate into a perfect system.   There are of course serious issues in our judicial structure-- it can be slow (to the point of violating peoples' rights) and it's well-documented that it is, uh, "more fair" to some than others.

Confession: I wanted to serve.  I was curious to see what it was like.  I'm fully willing to admit that I'm dorkier than many folks but yes, there was a certain civic duty element that kicked in.  Two judges came into the jury assembly room while about four dozen of us waited and told us to take another look at why we were here; they wanted us to look at jury duty beyond simply having to come in, try to wiggle out of serving if possible, and collecting fifteen bucks.  They urged us to see the responsibility and the duty of being a juror from their point of view, and from the point of view of the defendants and the victims-- that is, if we were in one of these roles, we'd want a non-biased jury of our peers who take the time to listen, weigh the evidence, and return a hopefully fair verdict.  I knew the jury selection process means that the majority of people called in don't actually end up on a jury, but happenstance (i.e. my number in the line) made it so that I was one of the last selected.

The deliberation was more difficult than I thought it would be.  I went into the trial as non-biased as I could be-- which was not too hard considering my answer was "no" to every juror-weeding-out question.  But with the witnesses and the evidence and the statements and the scenarios, it's not clearcut, it's not obvious, and it's difficult thinking something through to a conclusion within the strict guidelines that are set up with eleven other people.  And of course, it's not simply a thought exercise-- these are real situations involving real people and there are serious repercussions to any outcome.

And it's not as "big" but still significant to me-- I also had to rearrange and try to balance stuff because life and work don't pause for jury duty.  During breaks I was on my Blackberry trying to keep up with work emails.  It feels like I've gotten a bunch of false starts over the past few weeks with regard to getting back into the swing of things post-holidays and this interfered with that for sure.

All in all, while it was definitely a worthy experience, I can't say "A++ would buy again" anytime soon.  Luckily, I've done my duty for the next few years.