Dismissed from jury duty!

[mistressofmuses]

Got up way too damn early to go to the courthouse. (After not sleeping well, since I was of course terrified that my alarm wouldn't go off or something. Plus Cy wanted tucking in around 2:00, and Bella got up at about 3:00 and thought the fact I got up to check on her meant I was game for play time...)

The security line was just bonkers long.

Got to walk down the hall to the jury room behind a guy loudly talking about how glad he was to be here for something other than his own case for a change... which he then elaborated was because he was guilty at the January 6th insurrection, and proud of it. (Turned out he didn't even have jury duty, and was in the wrong place.)

Got to watch an educational video called "The Colorado Juror," once in the jury room. It was not quite dated enough to be charming, but just enough to be at least slightly amusing. (Reminders not to talk about active trials, including via blog posts, chat rooms, or social media like MySpace, lol.)

Got a pep talk from the jury commissioner. Got a second smaller pep talk from one of the district judges.

There were 7 cases for the day, four of which drew their pools pretty early, but I wasn't picked. The other three were still in "pre-trial deliberations," so we had to wait for them to finish that stage. I think it was only about two hours total, and ultimately all three of the remaining cases decided not to progress to trial.

So hooray, my civic duty has been satisfied for 2024.

Still not really how I would have chosen to spend my day off, but at least it's done!

-

We were also being held hostage by our apartments for two days - again - so they can have smoke detector testing today and tomorrow. (Which doesn't require us to be present, but requires dogs not be left loose, and it's still too hot to take them with us anywhere. Bella has a kennel, but Cy doesn't.) Since we HAD to go out without them, because Alex also had an appointment, we put Cy in the bathroom with a note on the door that said "THERE IS A DOG IN HERE."

Apparently they aren't required to actually tell us when they enter the apartment - which I hate, but they only have to tell us in advance that they are going to - but the closet doors were centered rather than closed when we came back, so presumably that's been taken care of, too.

Came home and napped.

Comments

[vriddy]

Got to walk down the hall to the jury room behind a guy loudly talking about how glad he was to be here for something other than his own case for a change...

😬😬😬

I would really hate if maintenance people could come in at will unless it was for a flooding or some other emergency... :( Chuckling a bit at "THERE IS A DOG IN HERE" note though, what an image 😂 That seems to be out of the way at least, and glad that you don't have to use your leave time for jury duty.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, that was a big yikes to start the morning off with.

Ugh, SAME. Most of the times they come in, it's for reasonable things, but it still feels invasive, especially when it happens frequently. I also really wish they would let us know when they have come in, just so we know it's done.

Haha, the dog note made me smile, too. The full note said "There is a dog in the bathroom! (There is no smoke detector in the bathroom.)"

Though it occurred to me later that they may have wanted to look in the bathroom because there is a sprinkler in there, and last time they wanted to check those as well. If they did open the door to look, there's a chance Cy didn't even notice, because he is completely deaf.

I am relieved to be done with jury duty for the year, at least!

[olivermoss]

Glad you are free of jury duty, even if that was annoying.

Not talk about the trial you are on? You mean the thing the actual jurors for the case I was alternate on could NOT stop doing?

That really sucks that they can just come in and don't give tighter windows, or let you pick times.

[mistressofmuses]

I'm glad too! I wouldn't have minded even if I had been assigned to a case; the commissioner told us at the start that all seven were types "typically" taken care of in a single day. But still, happier that I got to go home and nap, ha.

UGH. That doesn't surprise me. The case I served on didn't have too much of that, but only because there wasn't an opportunity. Considering some of the jurors' inability to follow other basic directions, I imagine it would have been a problem if the opportunity arose.

Right? I deeply wish they'd at least narrow it down to a window of a few hours. Two days is long enough to be very frustrating, and limits the things we'd ordinarily be doing. If they'd at least tell us when they were done, that would help, so we'd know we were okay to go after that. I'm glad they left the closet doors askew this time, so we felt okay to leave the apartment today.

[spikedluv]

I'm glad your duty is now over!

Ugh, that guy.

It sounds really inconvenient to live in an apartment with so many checks.

[mistressofmuses]

Me too!

That guy was certainly *a* way to start the morning... wasn't sorry he wasn't actually going in for jury service.

Ugh, it IS really inconvenient! And annoying! I realize that most of the things are reasonable - preventive pest checks, smoke alarm checking, inspecting that all appliances are in working order. Others feel less reasonable, like the annual inspections by the building investors, but those are a condition of living here. (Those always feel gross and condescending, though.) But... it in general feels controlling and invasive. And also inconvenient when it means we have to plan days at a time around making sure someone is here and/or that the dogs are with us every time we leave.

[umadoshi]

which he then elaborated was because he was guilty at the January 6th insurrection, and proud of it.

Oh, fun. >.<

But you're free now!

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, super gross. Not the best way to start the day, but at least he wasn't actually a reporting juror, so didn't have to stick around with him.

I am very glad to be free!

[scarlipswolfwife]

I'm so glad you got out of jury duty! It's always such an annoying, anxiety-inducing pain in the ass.

[mistressofmuses]

Oh, me too! I wouldn't mind serving if it weren't potentially a huge financial hit, because I do recognize it as an important thing, but I'm ALSO glad I didn't have to spend my whole weekend doing it!

[scarlipswolfwife]

I probably wouldn't mind serving, but I also know from experience (not as a juror but as someone whose brother was judged by jurors who probably were not actually screened out for biases). I also know that I would find it very difficult to believe anything coming out of a cop's mouth who testified, and I would likely be the person who let a guilty person go free because I wouldn't trust the cops or lawyers. I've never had to serve on a jury because I've always had a way out of it - religious retreats were a bit one for a while because I kept getting jury summons around the times we'd go to the Beltane and Samhain events. Then I was a student again. Then I was taking care of my aunt. I had to go up once down in Corpus, and I told them that I couldn't sit a jury and be unbiased because of my brother's case, and the judge snarked at me and said that he didn't think I was getting a death row case so I could just sit down. And I didn't get picked anyway, and when they pulled the "stay by your phone in case we need to call you back" I was like...yeah, right fuck off.

[mistressofmuses]

As I mentioned in another comment, my experience on a jury in the past didn't fill me with confidence in juries as a whole. It's kinda shitty of me to say, but I feel like I'd want to serve because I'd at least be TRYING to give a case fair consideration, which feels like more than I can say for some of the people who couldn't even follow the most basic directions.

Colorado is VERY strict about having almost zero things that exempt you: financial consideration (even things like "missing that much work without pay will cause me to be unable to pay my bills and I could face eviction"), religious events or beliefs, age... none of those exempt you. They even make it clear that being out of the country is not a reason to not appear; you fly back, or you pay a fine and/or go to jail.
The only time I was able to get an exemption was when I was in college, and that was only because that meant I was out of the county more than 50% of the time.

[scarlipswolfwife]

Ugh. That *sucks* that Colorado is so strict about being able to get out of jury duty. I mean, I get that this is supposed to be our civic duty, but I think that sometimes you just can't be unbiased. And in other cases, if you try to be unbiased, there's always going to be that asshole or two who just want to throw out a guilty verdict so that they can go home (or because they believe anyone on trial is automatically guilty because they've got a cop there saying that person is). I just know that if I'm sitting on a jury and they've got a cop testifying that the defendant is guilty, I'm going to question that *hard* before probably delivering a not guilty verdict out of spite/distrust because cops will lie on the stand and get away with it.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah. I understand the state's reasoning, because they do want the juror pool to be representative of the people who live in the county, not just the people who can afford unpaid time off... but like, if I got pulled onto a three-week or more trial the way my manager just almost was? I'd have to beg to borrow money to avoid being evicted; I can't pay my rent on the $50/day the county pays.

They do ask questions to try and narrow down biases and such, but that's after reporting. Because yeah, it's absolutely true that sometimes you can't promise to be objective, because you will have an emotional reaction and connection to something.
This time, the four cases that did go to trial each pulled 18 people from the juror pool to go up for further questioning by the judge and the involved lawyers, so presumably they intended to cut a third of them loose.
But they also don't ask everyone the same questions to determine bias, or at least they didn't at the city case. They asked the woman ahead of me some questions, and the fact she answered 'yes' meant she was dismissed. My answer to the same questions would also have been yes, but I was asked different things, so I was on the jury.

I would always do my best to avoid being biased, and give my fair assessment of any case I was asked to be a juror on. But yeah, I think I'm probably a lot less likely to take a cop as an absolute authority, because I KNOW how biased they are and how fucked up policing is as a whole. I feel like that's more of a reason it would be a good thing to be on a jury, and at least I'm capable of following the damn instruction (unlike at least one of the guys on the last one I was on)... but I guess a lot of people probably feel like they'd be a better arbiter than average, ha.