I was called for jury duty yesterday morning. I trundled down to the Boulder Courthouse (a place which I’m quite familiar with by now) and went obediently to the Jury Assembly Room. There I was treated to a lovely 20-minute video about my responsibilities as a citizen, the jury process, yada yada. Truly an entertaining experience– look for the video at your local Blockbuster soon.
Anyway, then we went to the courtroom where we were introduced to the District Attorney (Ms. Laskey) and the defendant (Mr. Moore). Apparently Mr. Moore had been driving with a revoked license and was caught. Oops. He had elected to defend himself in this trial, which was probably not the wisest choice on his part.
They picked twelve of the thirty of us (I was not one) and questioned them about their personal status, feelings toward law enforcement, etc. Everyone “passed” I suppose, and then Ms. Laskey asked a few questions of the jurors. She was articulate, well-dressed, and obviously very experienced with this sort of thing. Mr. Moore had his turn, and he asked a rambling question that must’ve gone on for two minutes (after which the juror he had asked said, “huh?”). He was wearing his Broncos sweatshirt and jeans, and was a pretty stark contrast to the DA.
Well, they selected the jurors and everyone else (me included) was allowed to leave. That was that. It might have been interesting to watch the trial, because it’s my opinion that Ms. Laskey was going to chew him up and spit him out… but I had things to do, so I guess I’ll never know how it came out.
So my civic duty is covered for at least one more year. One of these times it might be fun to actually sit on a jury, but for now I’m happy to have only spent the morning.