This Coming From The Homosexual!

The juror selection process is an interesting one. The day started off with several hundred people packed into a room waiting to be shuttled off like cattle to their designated court room. On a side note, you’d think that out of all of those hundreds there would be more cute guys…I noticed only one, and, well, he noticed me, too…haha…made me feel nice to have someone walk past me and turn around to get another look, especially when they are as cute as this one was. My number (well, my number fell in a range of numbers) was called and I headed off with about 70 other people to my court room.

And there we sat. For well over an hour. Once we were finally called in, we were seated according to a number we were assigned (I was juror hopeful #21). We are introduced to the lawyers, who I’m not impressed with at all. For starters, the two women selected for the prosecution were color and outfit coordinated. They both wore a red blouse, black coat and black skirt. The one that spoke to us looked like a cross between Kate Bosworth and one of the mothers off of a sitcom called Yes, Dear (no, I do not watch it, I just know what she looks like), but with a big ol’ Texas accent that she was trying to disguise.

For those not familiar with the juror selection process, here are the basics: They get a large group of people, the prosecution and defense take turns asking each person questions and then they narrow it down to the twelve they believe will be the most fair in making a decision.

Let me say that I was very surprised by just how, well, to put it bluntly, STUPID most people are. They were told from the start (including several times throughout the process) that absolutely no facts (aside from what the charges are) were going to be given to us at this stage. They were told that any examples given to them were just that…examples. We wasted so much time with people asking over and over why they couldn’t be told the facts. And then even more time was wasted by people that couldn’t grasp that one of the examples the prosecutor gave was not what this particular case was about. The DA (District Attorney…I promise not to get all Rachael Ray on you and explain this abbreviation every time I may use it) is partly to blame, but anyone who was listening would have known that she previously said that no facts at all would be given (including the ages of people involved). Needless to say, it was very frustrating. I didn’t care for some of the questions, either. We had to give an A) or B) answer, no other. But with this type of case, there was honestly no way the majority of people could say one or the other based on the information they provided us with. What kind of question is, “What do you think is more important, punishment or rehabilitation?” If I told you what the case was about, though, I don’t think that you could give a proper response based on what little information was given to us.

I was surprised by one comment someone shouted out, though. Well, not so surprised considering where I live, but still. This man, who is obviously gay, made a remark to the prosecutor that people know from a very young age what is right and what is wrong, or something along those lines. A man in the back said (and just loud enough for everyone to hear), “This coming from the homosexual!” It was not acknowledged by anyone, but I knew everyone heard it. Thankfully, he did not make it to the final twelve.

Needless to say, since I was generally quiet (except for the one time every single person was asked to answer a question – the aforementioned one), I did make it. Quite frankly, I’m not sure what I’m getting into. I already do not like the subject (no, it isn’t a murder, but it is a criminal case). All I do know is that the person has already plead guilty, so this is just the punishment phase. Not sure if I can even disclose information, but I figure that part is safe since I’m not giving any specifics.

So I’ll be in court through Wednesday or Thursday, assuming we are all able to wrap things up like the judge is hoping. So I won’t be posting during the day. I tried to today, but, for some reason, I can no longer log into Blogger from my phone. It brings up the log-in page, but takes me to Google. It’s weird.