My number was called

Well, today was a new experience for me, I got called for jury duty. I have been called before but I always was dismissed. I received final confirmation that I was selected about a week ago. Thankfully you could do most of the signing through the Internet. I drove to the address and found it right away but I still had to park 2 blocks away. Once I get through the security check (no strip search, damn) I find the right room. But there are people sitting outside on the chairs and the room has a sign that says "Jury Only". Hmmmmm, does that mean that there are already people waiting in there? Or do we just wait outside? I asked one of the guys sitting outside if he was part of the 1:15pm group and he said he was. I noticed some other people nodding their heads. So, what the hell, I'll wait outside too. After a bit, we were ushered into the room to wait a little longer. I guess we could have all gone in, but none of us wanted to walk into the wrong room. I will say through out this experience, I found that there was a void of instructions. I wasn't sure what I needed to wear or what I could or couldn't take into the courtroom. And a few more instructions on what we could expect to happen on that day would have been nice. I tried to research what would happen, but couldn't find anything on the Internet.

So we are given a number and then escorted into the courtroom where we are altered to the type of case we would be listening to, and it is a noise violation (dogs barking) case. We were asked questions by the prosecuter. Most of the questions were based around if we ever had a problem with a neighbor, dog issues, ever been a juror before, dislike attorneys, and if we have dogs. So after all of the questions, we were asked to leave the room. I guess that is when they decided on which jurors they wanted. After we got back into the room, our names were called, and son of a bitch, I was the last person to get called. :)

Not to totally bore you, I'll stick to some of the case facts..... A family has 5-7 dogs at all times, they get out and roam the neighborhood, they constantly bark, this is the familys 5th or 6th ticket for noise violation and the cops and animal control has been called to their house a couple of times a year. While the neighbor his constantly bothered by this issue, he will call the cops every couple of months with the hopes his neighbors will take care of their dogs.

Well, along the way the lady admitted that her dogs got out and were barking the day she got the ticket. At that point, I say (in my head) "what the fuck, you just said you were guilt, let's go home!!!". Unfortantly, that didn't happen, and we had to sit and listen to the lady tell us how much she loves her dogs and that they would never hurt anybody. I have no doubt that she cares for her dogs, but she needs to take better care of them and ensure they don't escape from her yard.

So, we as the jurors were sent out to talk about the case and deliver our verdict. Well, it was pretty easy... GUILTY! But our second task was to put a dollar on her violation. The ticket, if she didn't contest it, would have been $100. We all agreed that the dollar amount should be more than the ticket. We all agreed on $250, I think it should have been higher, but the rest of the jurors seemed happy with the $250 fine.

All in all, I didn't mind jury duty as much as I thought I would. I wouldn't want to get stuck into a large trial that lasted more than a couple of days. Jim got his jury summons a couple of weeks after I did, so we'll see if he gets chosen for such an important case :)