A federal trial. Capital crime.
They sent me a big long questionnaire, 4 months ago. They told me the victim and the defendants name and what the crime was and when. They told me not to look up any further details so as not to cloud my judgement on the manner any further. They told me it would take 6 to 8 weeks out of my life for a trial and then a penalty phase if needed. The questionnaire asked if I belonged to any organizations (like the NRA) what weight I gave to eye witness testimony and DNA evidence. That sort of thing.
They were very serious about this perpetrator.
The guy was on trial for murdering a Dunbar armored car guard making a delivery to a Wells Fargo. The bad guys got a canvas bag with $50k in it, and a 26 year Navy veteran with a family got dead doing his job. Bad guys car-jacked a fresh vehicle when the OTHER guard t-boned their getaway car. A month or two later, at least one guy they thought was a particular bad guy got pinched, and this was his day in court. Because of the heinousness of the crime, and it involving bank money, somehow the Feds got tacked on to the prosecution.
Well, they released me from my obligation this past week, after a few trial postponements, and I don't know why. Either the defendant plead out to avoid the needle, or hung himself in his cell with his shoelaces. I don't know, don't much care. I'd put money on it being the former.
The NRA membership thing might have gotten me disqualified when they sat me down for the serious, in-person voire doire, I imagine.
If not, I toyed with the idea of the plethora of OTHER ways to get out of missing 8 weeks of work for 8 weeks of more boring work. Things like shouting, "Judge! Judge! I got the trots something awful! How about a potty break?!" every 10 minutes. Or "But I just GOTTA know his birthday. If you tell me that ,I'll know if the Moon in his Birth Stars is waxing or waning, and then I'll know if he did it or not. It could save us all a lot of trouble..." Maybe, "Look how close his eyes set together! You can all SEE he did it from that!"
No such luck.
Not good in this economy to go 8 weeks where some other people are covering your real work for you. Either they mess it all up, causing no END to the headache when you return, or they can get it done just fine without you, so maybe they don't need to be paying you all that money to come in 40 hours a week, anyway. If I got fired, I'd like to think I would not go stick up armored cars, no matter how hungry I got.
Naah, skip the respectable and hardened targets like armored cars and banks. Drug dealers are soft and squishy, plus no one minds when they get knocked over.
ReplyDelete*ahem*
I've found it sufficient to tell the judge that I object to being forcibly removed from my life. That I am unable to be impartial because I am opposed to forcing people to serve on juries without just compensation for their time.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for juries, but $10/day just doesn't cut it.
I've been called twice and was excused both times.