Jury Duty Was Interesting.

.....Monday through Thursday I was on jury duty in the Federal Court in Tacoma. Down on the waterfront at the old Union Station. The case involved someone in Spanaway who was indicted for having marijuana, having enough for sale, and having a lot of firepower to protect it. In addition to the fact that he was already a convicted felon. We were not told what the previous felony was and were admonished on many ocassions to NOT look up information on the internet.

.....Watching and comparing the Government Prosecutors and the Defense Attorney was extremely interesting. There were three prosecuting attornies and only the one defense attorney. The prosecutors were all in their thirties, and definitely seemed younger than me. The defense attorney was older, maybe late fourties or younger fifties. It made a difference in how they approached everything.

.....When the trial portion was done I was left with many impressions. First, that there was a lot of missing information. Seeing the actual marijuana, the guns, and the ammunition was powerful. But connecting it directly to the guy on trial wasn't so cut-and-dry, especially considering all the others who lived in the same house.

.....The 'spin' on both sides was pretty intense. Small facts were driven home with vivid explanations and were highlighted in different ways. It was interesting how the exact same facts could be explained in such different ways.

.....The defense lawyer's spin was very intense. If both sides were instructed to sell us a set of used cars, I would make the bet that he would be much better at doing so.

.....When all was said and done and we were left to our deliberations, it was not easy. At first I sat pretty quiet and let the others do most of the arguing amongst themselves as I sorted things out in my own mind. But once I had it figured out for myself, I started really listening a lot closer to what people said and how they said it.

.....There were some whom, after a while, I just wished I could turn off their speech producers. Every time they would open their mouth I would sigh in frustration. Then there were others who were intelligent, and had open minds that thought their way through the facts. Although it was very strange how twelve people could look at the exact same thing and come up with twelve different opinions.

.....Towards the end I started getting a little frustrated as on a couple of arguments the group kept going around and around and around, always ending where they started. Often they wouldn't follow their own logic. And when pointed out to at least one or two of them, they would get stubborn and just dig into whatever faulty logic they were clinging to.

.....In the end we convicted the guy on three of the five counts. I was disappointed as I thought we should have had at least four, but I finally relented on one as I could see their logic. Although, when I went home and finally had the chance to look up the information on the internet, I came to the conclusion that I should have stuck more to my way of looking at things.

.....All in all though, very interesting. I think I'd do it again. But not soon! I need a break. Such a small room for such a long time period trying to come to a consensus in a difficult situation, not exactly an ideal situation.

.....And, I need to get caught up with things at work!

.....Aaron / Arontius.