Summons

I got a summons in the mail a few weeks ago

 I saw that little blue postcard in the mail that makes my gut clench. Yup, a summons to do jury duty about a month ago. On Wednesday the automated call told me to report at 1 pm. It took us two hours to be greeted, watch a clip about how important jury duty is and be lead up to the judge's court. He talked to us for a bit and then they started assigning chairs to sit in. The first 18 were slated for the jury box. My number was 15 - I got into the comfortable chairs instead of the benches - I wasn't exactly pleased with my luck. 

The judge talked a little bit more about what would be happening and how we were not to talk about the case at all with anyone and not to look up anyone in the case or the restaurant etc. Then the defense attorney started asking questions. On my turn, I had a few issues and said I would try to be fair, and also quoted my husband about a defendant not testifying, and was told not to go home and discuss anything with him or ask his opinion. 😆 I told the judge my husband would not ask. When we took a 10 minute break, we came back to find some of the potential jurors had a blue slip.  That is your get out of jury duty pass.  But despite my answers I came again today. I wasn't asked any questions today but quite a few new people got to answer the same question from yesterday. It's a long process, over and over.  Law and Order leaves a ton of stuff out. I was moved up to chair number 6. Now my heart started to pound a little more. More people left with blue slips.

After the first break a few more left with their blue slips. Then we had a long lunch break and a few more people got blue slips. One man had an issue with his daughter going to the hospital. We had another hour and a half of the same questions to other potential jurors and I got my blue slip!  No questions for me today but I feel lucky I did not have to decide in someone's life.