Hello you!
Well, I have one amazing topic to talk about this time as I am sure you figured out from the title of this here blog. At first I was really not upset to have been summoned because I thought it would be a really great experience. I know that for most people they dread the idea of having to be a juror and go through the whole process of being a juror, but I thought it could be fun. I have never really seen a case before minus Law and Order, so I thought this could be cool. I would get to know some legal terms and feel like a good law abiding helpful citizen paying my debts to society. However, the whole experience was ridiculous and I was not thrilled once I was there.
First of all, you have to get there by 8:30 in the morning and check in. Being that we are a small county in Vermont, we do not have a very big county hall. So there was only one metal detector and so it took forever just to get into the building itself. The cop checking us also had the weirdest attitude, he would be happy and lucky but then mean. It was honestly the strangest thing I have ever witnessed. To be honest with you, he was very nice to the older folks and then touchy with those of us that looked younger. I am not trying to say anything about cops but he had a bad attitude towards me for no reason, I was very nice and approachable to him.
Finally when he got through that he had to wait around until 9:45 just to get up to the court room and start our orientation. Well, the orientation was more like a question and answer session and was quite pointless. At this point I tried to get out of it because I was a full time student and could be doing lots of homework instead of wasting my time, but apparently getting an education is no reason to miss out on this when I have the rest of my life to do this, whatever. Then three people were excused because they looked to be over 70 and could not hear anything. We finally saw the judge, he made a very long speech much to do about nothing, and then we got a 10 minute recess. Again pointless and we should have just kept going.
We walked back in with the attorney's ready to pick a jury. By random 18 of the 55 of us were put on the bench to ask questions for the attorney's to decide what jurors they wanted. Asking questions took over an hour for the two of them to go, 10 minutes to deliberate, and then we had to pick new jurors to put in the stand. 6 more were picked, not me at all, and then the questioning began again. This time it was worse because one potential juror did not get it. He was saying how he knew all the witnesses and the attorney asked him if he would be bias. The juror said he was not sure and this back and forth bull crap went on for about 10 minutes. Eventually the man said he would be bias, which he should have just said ten minutes earlier, and we finally moved on. Then the jury was selected and we got to leave.
So after 5 hours of waiting around and almost falling asleep I got to leave and go home. It was so annoying because I could not read my book because I had to listen to the jurors being questioned. That way if I was randomly selected by computer to be put up there, I would be able to answer the questions. So it was a huge waste of time and I missed going to Middle School and a class. I was not thrilled at all and quite mad that I had to miss it all. It was so obnoxious and I would like to serve but this was awful. The worst thing was that if I was picked I would go to a three day trial from the 28- the 30th of Nov which would be impossible for me. So thank God I was not picked! God that was annoying!
That is it, the venting done!
Joshua
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