Day 221 - Jury Duty

This morning, I had to report for Jury Duty. I was pretty surprised to be called by a note in the mail and that the court number assigned to me was the only one that actually had to show up today.

The entire experience of the jury selection was interesting. We started with about 40 people or so and after some general instructions they began drawing names, at random, of all the potential jurors and if your name was called you were to take a seat in the jury bench. The select 24 names and then the jury selection begins. My name was drawn pretty early on.

After an hour or so of questions, (the examination of jurors) and some ridiculous excuses from some of the potential jurors; it was time for the prosecution & the defense to use their 6 peremptory challenges apiece to get our group of 24 down to 12.

Lucky me, I made the final 12 (to be honest, I wasn't very happy about this, but at least it will be a new interesting experience . . . I hope). They then drew 3 more names and each side got one more peremptory challenge to select the alternate juror.

After the selection process they showed us our jury meeting area and let us know they expected out case to wrap up by the end of the day on Tuesday.

Here I am back at home after my first day of jury duty, proudly sporting my juror pin :)