Give Me Jury Duty
Turns out kidnapper and child rapist Phillip Garrido was a Jehovah's Witness. As was, apparently, his aiding and abetting wife.
"Psychologists have speculated," says one article, "that Mrs Garrido was a victim of catastrophically low self-esteem and, once under her husband’s spell, would do anything to hold on to her man." On the other hand, a wife's subjection to the head of the household was also part of what we regularly heard from the Kingdom Hall lectern when I was growing up. Not that those two elements--catastrophically low self-esteem; religious/cultural dictum--are mutually exclusive. Not by a long shot.
I'm just sayin'.
Yesterday, I really did have jury duty--or at least, I was called to the local Hall of Justice for jury selection. We were in the courtroom of Judge Jean Lovell to be vetted to serve on a drunk driving case, and I know everyone always talks about jury duty with resigned dread, but it was actually pretty fascinating, and different from what I expected. Everyone--the clerk, the judge, the attorneys, even the metal-detector lady--was super-polite and explained everything, while I'd thought they'd be all brusque and impatient with us mere civilians, like on courtroom shows. Also, I'd only seen the insides of courthouses in West Virginia and Louisiana before, so I was startled by how clean, new, and plush everything was. The courtroom didn't even have a smell. And our jurors' chairs were padded and could rock backward.
Once the action started, the whole process was intriguing. (And even though the attorneys told us that it would be nothing like CSI or Law & Order, guess what? It kinda was.) The defendant--she of the alleged drunk driving episode--was actually sitting there eyeing us the whole time, which felt peculiar. She later gave her attorney whispered input about which of us to jettison.
The process of the voir dire, the vetting of jurors for bias by the attorneys (which the Nebraskan attorneys pronounced sort of like boudoir, which was confusing), took hours. Have you ever taken a breathalyzer test? Have you ever worked in a place that served alcohol? Do you have formal training in the chemical and biological aspects of alcohol metabolism? We knew a whole lot more about each other than most strangers do. (And I've got to say, this is a mighty drinkin' town.) By the time the lawyers were making their secret checkmarks on the list of our names, deciding who to get rid of, I was so interested and invested that I wanted to stay.
Alas, they gave me my walking papers. I don't know which thing I said made one of the lawyers cross me off, and I never get to learn which lawyer it was. Sigh.
I hope I get called again. Seriously, I do.
"Psychologists have speculated," says one article, "that Mrs Garrido was a victim of catastrophically low self-esteem and, once under her husband’s spell, would do anything to hold on to her man." On the other hand, a wife's subjection to the head of the household was also part of what we regularly heard from the Kingdom Hall lectern when I was growing up. Not that those two elements--catastrophically low self-esteem; religious/cultural dictum--are mutually exclusive. Not by a long shot.
I'm just sayin'.
Yesterday, I really did have jury duty--or at least, I was called to the local Hall of Justice for jury selection. We were in the courtroom of Judge Jean Lovell to be vetted to serve on a drunk driving case, and I know everyone always talks about jury duty with resigned dread, but it was actually pretty fascinating, and different from what I expected. Everyone--the clerk, the judge, the attorneys, even the metal-detector lady--was super-polite and explained everything, while I'd thought they'd be all brusque and impatient with us mere civilians, like on courtroom shows. Also, I'd only seen the insides of courthouses in West Virginia and Louisiana before, so I was startled by how clean, new, and plush everything was. The courtroom didn't even have a smell. And our jurors' chairs were padded and could rock backward.
Once the action started, the whole process was intriguing. (And even though the attorneys told us that it would be nothing like CSI or Law & Order, guess what? It kinda was.) The defendant--she of the alleged drunk driving episode--was actually sitting there eyeing us the whole time, which felt peculiar. She later gave her attorney whispered input about which of us to jettison.
The process of the voir dire, the vetting of jurors for bias by the attorneys (which the Nebraskan attorneys pronounced sort of like boudoir, which was confusing), took hours. Have you ever taken a breathalyzer test? Have you ever worked in a place that served alcohol? Do you have formal training in the chemical and biological aspects of alcohol metabolism? We knew a whole lot more about each other than most strangers do. (And I've got to say, this is a mighty drinkin' town.) By the time the lawyers were making their secret checkmarks on the list of our names, deciding who to get rid of, I was so interested and invested that I wanted to stay.
Alas, they gave me my walking papers. I don't know which thing I said made one of the lawyers cross me off, and I never get to learn which lawyer it was. Sigh.
I hope I get called again. Seriously, I do.
Jezebella said:
Women with advanced degrees, still in the workforce, almost never get kept for jury duty. Retired women with PhDs have a better shot at it. I'm not sure what the logic is there. Distrust of uppity women, I imagine.
My last jury duty voir-dire involved them asking us to raise our hands if we were distrustful of law enforcement. Since the previous question - are you related to any law enforcement or military folks? - was answered yes by a TON of people, and the question before that - do you own a firearm? - also answered heavily in the affirmative, well.... I don't trust cops, but I sure as hell wasn't going to admit it in there in front of all those sheriffs' wives and deputies' uncles.
September 4, 2009 8:48 PM