Jury Duty, Day 3

The defendant smiled at me today. I smiled back out of habit. Yeechh!!

Jury duty is a great way to observe the freaks in one's community up close. It's not an entirely representative cross-sampling of the town, because the pool of jurors comes from registered voters, who are typically more aware of what's going on in their community and the greater world, and oriented towards actively pursuing causes they believe in, than the average American. But just because one cares enough about the world around them to register to vote, does not make one intelligent, or sane, or pleasant.

There was a guy sitting next to me today who looked and acted like Newman from Seinfeld. He has arrived each day wearing a full suit and tie. When he was called for jury questioning, he dropped just about every name and connection possible.

"I heard the prosecuting attorney talked about at a party thrown by my old co-worker's gardener. I briefly dated someone who attended police academy for two weeks."

Normally I'd assume he did it to give them any reason at all to dismiss him, but sometimes you know the ones who name-drop because they are just THAT insecure and attention-seeking.

There was another guy who started complaining loudly about the jury selection process. He pointed to the jurors who had already been selected and said, "I have a big problem with these people. They aren't representative of our population. There are no African Americans on the panel, for example."

"I can't confirm that that's true," the prosecutor said, glancing at an elderly stoical black woman on the jury. "I can't presume to know the races of all the jurors sitting here today."