cryowizard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cryowizard) wrote2006-05-30 05:37 pm
cryowizard) wrote2006-05-30 05:37 pm
Entry tags:
Wifebeaters are us!
Today I went for my first jury duty experience.
Long story short -- I ended up in the criminal division, Trial Part 4. The defendant was accused of beating a woman with his fists on April 1st this year. When we got to jury selection, from the laywers' questions I figured the general storyline was that (allegedly, of course) he was drunk, found out she was cheating on him (a fool's day indeed, I say!), and then proceeded to beat the living daylights out of her.
Nothing new.I mean, we've all beaten our girls once or twice in our lives. For their own good of course.
The selection procedure is really like it is on TV -- after you answer a general questionnaire about yourself very nice lawyers ask all kinds of attitude questions. For example, they asked us this: if you see a man hitting his wife in a store, would you call the police? There were other less direct questions like 'Do you think emotions can cloud one's judgement' and 'In your opinion, if a man beats his wife because he's drunk, does that make the situation more or less grave' and so on.
A word on my would-be jury peers -- 'tis Brooklyn, people: old-school church-going type black lady (victim of a mugging), a very young black girl who had issues with cops being witnesses (her brother was picked up once), a blue-eyed blonde white dude from Zambia (priceless faces in the room when he said that), an ex-Pakistani, a few Jews, a camera-hungry past-middle-aged white lady with her warpaint on, a middle-aged black gentleman whose father and nephew were shot at different times in South Carolina, and a few others. Nice people all.
What am I to say -- I didn't make it.
When it was all said and done, the lawyers killed four of us: an old Chinese man who could barely speak English (I have no clue how he made it to jury selection), a very young girl from Michigan who said she has issues passing judgement on people, a half-Swedish girl who was of the opinion that women can't be touched at all and me.
I can only speculate, but I think it was my answer to the sacral question of whether I would call the cops if I saw a guy hit his wife in a store. I said it depends on the level of violence. In my book the situation has to escalate beyond a certain point before I will either try to stop it myself or call the cops. A slap in the face is not enough. It's appalling , it's something I'd never do, but I guess my level of tolerance to this is not at zero.
Anycase, no more JD for me for the next six years.
Long story short -- I ended up in the criminal division, Trial Part 4. The defendant was accused of beating a woman with his fists on April 1st this year. When we got to jury selection, from the laywers' questions I figured the general storyline was that (allegedly, of course) he was drunk, found out she was cheating on him (a fool's day indeed, I say!), and then proceeded to beat the living daylights out of her.
Nothing new.
The selection procedure is really like it is on TV -- after you answer a general questionnaire about yourself very nice lawyers ask all kinds of attitude questions. For example, they asked us this: if you see a man hitting his wife in a store, would you call the police? There were other less direct questions like 'Do you think emotions can cloud one's judgement' and 'In your opinion, if a man beats his wife because he's drunk, does that make the situation more or less grave' and so on.
A word on my would-be jury peers -- 'tis Brooklyn, people: old-school church-going type black lady (victim of a mugging), a very young black girl who had issues with cops being witnesses (her brother was picked up once), a blue-eyed blonde white dude from Zambia (priceless faces in the room when he said that), an ex-Pakistani, a few Jews, a camera-hungry past-middle-aged white lady with her warpaint on, a middle-aged black gentleman whose father and nephew were shot at different times in South Carolina, and a few others. Nice people all.
What am I to say -- I didn't make it.
When it was all said and done, the lawyers killed four of us: an old Chinese man who could barely speak English (I have no clue how he made it to jury selection), a very young girl from Michigan who said she has issues passing judgement on people, a half-Swedish girl who was of the opinion that women can't be touched at all and me.
I can only speculate, but I think it was my answer to the sacral question of whether I would call the cops if I saw a guy hit his wife in a store. I said it depends on the level of violence. In my book the situation has to escalate beyond a certain point before I will either try to stop it myself or call the cops. A slap in the face is not enough. It's appalling , it's something I'd never do, but I guess my level of tolerance to this is not at zero.
Anycase, no more JD for me for the next six years.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2006-06-03 04:38 am (UTC)(link)(I postponed JD earlier this year. Will be called again in October)
-LT