> I'm on jury duty this week. Got selected, trial begins tomorrow. So I may
> be a little inattentive until it's all over.
>
====================
I served once, and got to be jury foreman. An interesting experience. We
angered the judge by refusing to convict a kid who had vandalized a bus stop
kiosk. He later went on a killing spree (no, no, only kidding about the
spree)... :)
[WS:] I am being called for the jury duty every year (no exception) for the past 14 years I've lived in Baltimore, but I either get tossed for being a white male with a PhD in a predominantly black city with functional illiteracy rate of about 40% - or I asked the judge to be excused on the threat of jury nullification (in drug cases).
I served only once on a drug case (my confession of being fundamentally against drug laws did not work) - but the case was dismissed because some witnesses did not show up. At any rate, the case presented by the state was so flimsy that I made up my mind even before the defendant opened his mouth. BTW, he must have been that 40% statistic, because what he said did not make any sense at all, but the standard was "beyond reasonable doubt" and there was already enough reasonable doubt in the case as presented by the state.
Wojtek