Jury Duty

I got the letter in the mail. Im sure you've got one at one time or another. This was my first time ever. My first thought was ....."that will totally put a damper on my week" (homeschooling) But..alas it's our civil duty, there is no choice. So I patiently waited until Tuesday, when I was suppose to call after 3 pm and see if the case was still slated for Wednesday. I called, it was. Tuesday night I was thinking of all the reasons to give the judge to not serve and what "Christian" prahseology could I use to be dis-allowed. Late Tuesday and early Wednesday I just had this thought that wouldn't leave me. If we as believers always try to get out of our civil duty to serve, how are we even trying to impact, in even this small way, our Country. Why should we leave the jury of our peers to everyone else?

Wednesday 8am, I reported to the local 35th District Court. I was praising God I didn't have to drive downtown Detroit. About 20 of us were there waiting for the same thing. This was a jury of 6. 6 were drawn, I was not one of them. Then the questioning started. 2 were dismissed, 2 more drawn. 1 more was dismissed, one more drawn. 2 more dismissed.....I was drawn. After a few more dismissals, the judge has his jury and I was one of them.

The whole process was fascinating. I feverishly took notes, 3 big legal pages worth. The case was a driving while impared. (drinking but not drunk) We had to decide whether the lady was actually impared to drive or if she was fine. Come to find out at the end of the trial, that the breathalizer results could not be used. (we kept wondering why a breathalizer was not given and the judge wouldn't answer us) Because the police officer made a mistake in procedure (it had nothing to do w/the test itself) they couldn't use it.

I was pretty convinced from the opening statements. But waited through the whole trial before completely being sure. The other jurors were on the fence. Taking notes in a trial definately helps w/sorting out facts. Many times someone, even the defense attorney, would say something and present it as fact and I had taken notes from a video we watched w/the arrest, and I knew it was simply not true. The rest of the jurors were definately influenced by my note taking and proving what the comments made, were not accurate. We ended up w/a guilty verdict. A few of us talking w/the judge after the trial found out that she had been almost two times over the legal limit of .08 using the breathalizer. The gentleman juror was present during this conversation, he at the end was the one who still wanted to be leiniant to the lady. When he heard that she was 2x over the limit, he too was glad for the verdict.

All in all is was a VERY interesting day and one that I actually found to be a learning experience. It reinforced to me that even though we are Christians, it doesn't excuse us from serving our Country.