My brief stint in power

Recently, dear readers, I was handed a great power. And as Spiderman taught us, with great power comes great responsibility. For a brief period, I had the ability to decide a man's fate. I got to choose whether or not he ever saw the light of day again. I could have set him free, or sent him up the proverbial river.

This week, I was in JURY DUTY!

Pauly Shore: Yeah man, that movie was pretty swee-eet!

No! Not that crappy movie! And get out of my blog, Pauly!

Anyway, like I was saying, I went to my first Jury Duty this week. At first, I was pretty angry about it. I felt really inconvenienced. How dare these people force me to use my vacation time from work so I can sit in a room all day! But then I was selected to join one of the cases that day (some people just sit in the waiting room all day then go home).

It was a criminal case. On a street not that far from my house, 2 men attacked a woman and stole her money. She was able to identify one of the men and so he was the one standing trial as the defendant.

As we heard the opening statements, the Prosecuting attorney (representing the State) repeatedly told us that this would not be as formulaic or entertaining as we see on television. There would be no surprise witnesses, no CSI forensics team, and no witty script to follow.

But ya know what? I really enjoyed the whole process. We sat and watched a real criminal case going on. Lawyers stood right in front of us and questioned witnesses, trying to spin testimony in their favor. Plus, the defendant was in the room. You could actually see the man that you would be sending to jail. It was all very interesting.

Unfortunately, on the morning of the 2nd day in court, the judge declared a mistrial. Apparently, they had been searching for a hooker who had witnessed the crime and her testimony would help them to find the other man involved in the incident. So they wanted to drop this case for now until they could find him. I guess they would then have a new trial with both men.

After it was over, the judge came to speak with us. She explained some of the details of the case that we had been unaware of, and answered questions about what we would have done if the case had kept going. It really was a learning experience.

In the end, I lost one of my vacation days, and got paid about $14 (after taxes). But I'm glad that I did it. Now they can't call me to serve in any kind of jury for the next 2 years.

Has anyone else done this before? What kind of trial was it? Let's share some stories, people.