9/15 Jury duty

Few weeks ago I received a jury duty summon, this is the first time that I got called for jury duty. Don't know how long would that take, I arranged friends to watch Xander and Khai after schools. I was hoping that this duty would only last few days.

After checked in, the clerk told us that this is a capital murder trial, not a good case to be called and it may last a while. In addition, there were 105 people today waiting to be picked in the jury box.

After an hour waiting, we finally got called into the court. It was very exciting because I got to experience the scene that I saw on TV all the time (jury sit in the box and a judge in the front + lawyers from both sides) but I was also very worried that the computer would pick my name. I've gone through many excuses in my head and none of them sounds very good. The clerk started calling names and the judge asked them questions followed by the lawyers from both sides. They kept excusing some juries and calling new people, and some of the excuses from the jury including: "I have short attention", "I have no pay check", "I've read this case from newspaper", "I have medical condition", "I know about guns"....Every time when they excused one person, the whole group knew they might be the next one to be called. It was 12:10 pm and the judge decided to let us have lunch break and come back at 1:30 pm.

We went back to the court room and heard more names got called. More people got excused again, the whole group even got sent back to the waiting room because the judge and lawyers have to discuss something. Finally after 6 hours of picking, the 14 jury were finalized and we got to leave the court room. It's time to check out and collect our money. The clerk told us that she never seen it take that long to pick jurys ever. I received $36.50 that day, what a cheap labor I am. I'm still on call for the rest of the week and luckly that was it for me. No more jury duty for the rest of the week..Yeah.

Updated: 2 weeks later I read from the newspaper that the jury cannot make a decision so the case will be back to the court in January again.

身為美國公民的義務之一就是要當陪審圑員. 法院的電腦會隨機抽取樣本然後寄通知提醒你什麼時候要去法院當陪審員.當我一接到通知單,一則以喜一則以憂..喜的是可以親身體會在電視上看到的情節,憂的是不曉得要弄多久, 小孩子下課後要找別人看會很麻煩.

辦事員跟我們說今天這件案子是謀殺案,不是個好案子而且可能會弄很久.過了一個多小時終於傳我們到法院裡去, 好興奮哦..一直祈禱電腦不要挑我的名字, 我左右2個男士都被叫到前面去了吔, 我不會那麼幸運吧...2邊的律師可以輪流問這14位陪審員.為了挑有利於己方的陪審員, 2邊律師可以毫無理由的叫任何一個陪審員離開. 電腦會再挑下一個人到前面去坐著.法官會問陪審員們一些問題及讓他們說出審判此案有何因難之處...陪審員們好多都有理由像是:"我注意力很短", "我公司不付我薪水","我要常常上廁所", "我在報上看過這則新聞且瞭解的很清楚" 有的沒有的..被告律師每有一個新陪審員被叫, 他都一定會向前詢問問題,所以整個過程弄的好久

法院說先解散,大家去吃飯, 1點半過後再來集合. 好吧, 那我就回車上吃三明治, 睡個午覺再回來吧..同樣的步驟:挑陪審員, 問問題, 說他/她不能當的理由...過了半個鐘頭之後終於選出了14位陪審員..哦,好險.回去待侯室準備領錢.今天在這待了一天,法院會付你一天的薪水加上從家裡來回的車馬費:$36.50.真是廉價勞工.辦事員告訴我們整個禮拜每天晚上都要打電話看隔天要不要去報到,幸好就這樣子不用再回去報到了..真是新的體驗.

題外話:前幾天剛看到報紙,2個禮拜之後陪審圑過了好幾天還是不能做出一致的決定,所以檢方還會再上訴.