The month of October I was called to be on jury duty for Franklin County (Pasco)! All month long they did not need anyone till this week. Of course my number was called, along with 17 other numbers! There were 200 people to respond Thursday October 18th. This was my first time of having to serve and it was quite interesting!! Everyone told me how boring it is, and how bad it sucked, but I actually thought the entire process was really interesting and kind of fun! I showed up Thursday morning at 8:05- report time was 8:30am. I was standing out side the court house and got shit on by a bird!! Thankfully it was just on my arm and a nice woman had a Kleenex for me to borrow, so I cleaned it all off and walked inside when they opened the doors. The coordinator starts talking to us about what the process will be, how we will get paid $60.00 a day plus millage to be there and so on. Than she continues with "by the way, for those of you who parked out on this side of the court house on the street, (as she points out the window) your cars will be towed". Guess where I had parked my car..... Yep, right where she pointed to! There was no "no parking" sign, or yellow, red paint on the sidewalk, but apparently your just supposed to know not to park your car there. So I has to ask the bailiff, The guy who watches over the judge and jurors, if I could go move my car, along with 2 other people. He said we had to hurry, so I sprinted to my car, moved it about a block and a half down and ran back!!! Needless to say that was my exercise for the day! So that was the first hour of my first day in court.
Day 1:
We did a lot of sitting, but the Judge came out (who was very nice) and talked to us about the process that was going to be going on and how everything works and took our oaths. After a while we all got numbers, to the court system you are numbers to them after about the first couple hours. I was number 95 of 125. 75 people didn't show up either due to not calling in, or having prior arrangements to not be there. We got a morning brake, which was not that long, being we only had 2 bathrooms, and 125 rushing to get to them first!
By 11:00 both the Prosecuting lawyer and the defending lawyer with his client came in. At this point they told us what the trial was going to be about. It was a criminal case, child molestation in the first degree and was expected to last about 3 days, ending on Tuesday. With that being said, they gave people the opportunity to say weather or not they would be able to stay for the 3 days of the trial. I didn't realize how many excuses people could come up with! One guy said it was farming season and really need to be in the fields, some said they had Doctor appointments they couldn't miss or they were leaving town. After they said what was going on, both the lawyers had the choice to agree or disagree with letting them leave. No argument was made for any of the jurors . They also asked us a series of questions such as, do you know any of these people and listed the names of the witness and lawyers. If so they would just take down your number and move on. We then had to fill out a survey as to weather or not you have had any family members, or close friends that have been raped in any way. If you answered yes, you were to report back at 1:45pm, if not you had to report back Friday morning at 8:45pm. I had to come back Friday morning, but found out that there were about 40 people there Thursday evening till 5:30pm!! So off to work I went when we were excused at 11:40am.
Day 2:
I get there at 8:30 and we get all settled into the court room (which is WAY to small for as many people that were there). The bailiff came in and said "ok, we now need you to put yourself in numerical order starting from here". 1-14 were in the jurors box, and the rest from 15-130something put ourselves in order- which was pretty funny. It reminded me how in grade school we used to have to put ourselves in alphabetical order! After that was done, in walks the lawyers and the client again for more questioning. They informed us that one of the bathrooms was closed down, and that we would all have to share one bathroom!!! The judge comes in and the prosecuting lawyer starts with the questions. How would you feel if this..? What would you do in this situation..? So on and so on. They asked a lot of people questions regarding the surveys we had to fill out that they sent us in the mail last month. They asked a lot of jurors that were in the box quite a bit of questions as to weather or not we can be fair for this trial, being that it was such a hard subject matter. A lot of emotions were going on and people were standing up and saying I can not do this trial and be fair about it. I had to think really hard, but I think i could be fair with the trial cause remember- they are innocent unless proven guilty. But having a 2 1/2 year old nephew made it really hard cause all I could do was was think of Ethan. But I decided that I could be fair and went on with the process. He talked for about a hour, than the defending lawyer got up and asked a lot more question to the jurors and everyone else. That went on for about 30-45 minutes. We got a very short break and than we continued! They went ahead and released about 5-7 people for some of there comments earlier about how they would have trouble being fair in the process. They then called more people to the box and asked a few more questions. Than the lawyers deliberated about who they wanted on the juror, meanwhile we could not leave the room or talk, but we could at least stand up and stretch, being at this point it was 11:30. After a long deliberation a decision had been made. The Judge read off the numbers to the people who were off the juror who where sitting in the box, and read about 12 other number and names that were to go to the juror box. Those 14 were the chosen ones to be on the case, and the rest of us were released at 12:00. I was not chosen, but did find out if was a case of a 27 year old male and a 6 year old girl. They asked us some personal questions because of the nature of this particular case, it was going to be hard for a 6 year old girl to come out and tell about her experiences.
It was very cool to see what goes on behind picking jurors, how you have to take the oath and everyone raises when the judge enters and leaves the room. The bailiffs were all so nice and funny, they made it very light along with the judge. It was a really good experience, and although I did not get chosen to be on this trial, I think that at some point it would be neat to be able to serve. I hope everyone gets to go through the process as well so see how important of a process it is! Has anyone else been called to serve on a trial? I would love to hear your experiences and if you enjoyed it as much as I did?
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