So much for that

Jury duty's done. As one of the lawyers said, I was "called, but not chosen." Capitalize one of the Cs and it sounds positively mystical. The court only had one case this week, so they only needed 13 jurors. They whittled the pool down twice, first to cut the field down to something over 30, and then again down to 27. I was #28 in that second line, so just barely missed the cut. Anyway, it was an interesting enough way to spend the morning:

• The case I missed out on had something to do with a property rights dispute. I don't know much about it, but one of the people claimed there was a verbal agreement that she could live in the place, while the other person wanted her out of there.
• After they introduced the case, they asked if any of the jurors knew either party to the case, and an older woman raised her hand. When the judge asked what her relationship was, she said (and I quote), "I's both they's momma."
• The guy next to me also knew both parties to the case, but didn't speak up initially. It wasn't until the potential jurors were answering questions from the lawyers that he revealed his relationship with them. He didn't seem to think it would affect his judgement in the case, which you might think would make him the heir of Solomon, except that 30 seconds after he finished talking with the lawyers they asked the group at large if anyone knew the parties to the case, and he just sat there. So no Solomon...just kinda slow, mon.

Posted by Jason at May 4, 2004 02:27 PM