On A Different Subject...

Well, the trial's finally over and I can blog a little bit about it. It was very interesting to serve on the jury and I'm glad I did it. Being cooped up with 12 other people and trying to agree on something is quite an experience. It was mostly a pleasant experience, but a bit of a sobering one. If these people represent a microcosm of the American people, it explains a lot. When we weren't talking about the case, we talked about everything else. Right at first there wasn't much about the case we knew to talk about, so we just got to know each other. I heard some things that made me grit my teeth, some things I just couldn't keep quiet about, and some things I ignored. We weren't there to talk politics, after all, but sometimes you just can't let it go by, like when one young lady was talking about how "bad" the economy is. I corrected her, of course, in a nice way, but her reasoning was "I'm broke." Now, from what I gathered she is a single parent and a hairdresser, drives a nice car, smokes. Sorry...I don't see any indications of a bad economy there. I see perhaps a bad choice or two. Then there was the inevitable "why are we in Iraq" thing. I gritted my teeth on that one, because if I had gotten started there would have been no stopping me, and it was about time to go back into the courtroom anyway. Honestly, the media has certainly been effective in its pursuits, I gotta say that.

Another comment I couldn't keep quiet about was "we have lost our rights in this country." I said, "Oh, come on, what have you lost?" What did he come up with? "We don't have the Geneva Convention any more." What the *#&@? That DID get me started, but we were hushed by the rest of the jury because we needed to be talking about the case, which was true, of course.

We did all come to a "guilty" consensus, however. There were two or three holdouts for a while, but the evidence was very convincing, the victim had positively identified the defendant, the defendant had the money stuffed down his pants when he was apprehended, for heaven's sake. I have to say, though, never having had that experience before...even though I was sure the young man was guilty, it's still a little difficult to do it. I know we did the right thing, but I'm sad for the guy, 23 years old, who has ruined his life...at least for the near future. He made a choice and is going to pay the price, and that's as it should be. It's just such a waste.