Jury duty
Thursday May 10, 2007
Yesterday I had jury duty at the Williamson County, TX Precinct 2 Justice Court (or "J.P. court" as the assistant district attorney called it). This was my second time at jury duty. The first was some time back in the late 1990s or 2000 and I didn't get selected to be on a jury. This time I did get selected for a six person jury to hear a case about a traffic violation.
There were 35 potential jurors, and what turned out to be two cases. There were originally four cases, but one defendant didn't show up (a big no-no, as they add another charge for failure to appear and charge you $10 for each juror that showed up, and put out a warrant for your arrest!) and another defendant changed their plea to guilty.
Jury selection here was not like you see on TV, where each potential juror might be questioned for quite some time. And that's as it should be, as these are the most minor of cases. It was more of a "raise your hand if you think you'd have an issue with X" or "raise your hand if you think you have anything relevant to the case we should know about" and then asking additional questions of those that raised their hands.
I wasn't selected for the first trial, but I was in seat 11 for the second trial, and given a six person jury and each side can strike up to three jurors for any reason (or none at all), I got picked for the jury. Then I was told to report back at 1:30, so I got a two and a half hour break.
The trial itself was pretty short, with the highway patrol officer and the defendant each giving their side of the story. Then we were off to deliberate. I was pleased to see we all looked at the two exhibits and discussed the evidence and took the job seriously. We came to agreement pretty quickly, and called the bailiff to tell him we were ready. We went back into the court room, said we had come to a verdict, the judge read it, and we were dismissed.
Being a juror was an interesting experience, and I hope if I'm ever on trial I also have a jury that takes the job seriously. On the other hand, I was glad it was a single day duty, as I have plenty to do at work!
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