I've been called oh, so regularly.

Sometimes it's nice to be off the grid.

Yes, I'm one of those punk kids that's not registered to vote. That'll probably change for next year, though.

Feels too much like admitting I live here, though.

---

Closeness to victims of similar crimes can taint you in the eyes of the lawyers--what about closeness to law enforcers or law enforcement?

You're right, the judge also asked if people were in law enforcement or close to someone who was.

After we were chosen, we were pretty much sent home. They showed us where the jury room was, they handed out bus passes for those that needed them (I took public transportation after that first day), and they told us to be back at 9:30AM.

We didn't actually get started until after 10 the next morning, and that was the case the whole time. We spent more time waiting in the jury room than we did in the courtroom, I think. And we were locked in the jury room, I guess to prevent us from being tampered with.

The prosecutor's opening statement laid out pretty much everything, and this was the first time we learned anything beyond "aggravated sexual assault" and the fact that the weapon was a knife. The claim was that the defendant broke into the victim's apartment at 3AM, put a knife to her throat, made her take off her pants and underwear, and raped her. Afterwards, he made her turn on her back and tried to tie her up. She fought back, grabbing the knife by the blade, and got the knife from him. Her daughter and nieces, sleeping in the other room, were awakened by her screams. They tried to get in the bedroom, but he'd locked it from the inside. He jumped out the bedroom window to escape (second story), and the police came.

None of them spoke English -- not the defendant, or any of the first three people who testified, who were the daughter (20), the niece (16), and the victim (40).

---

When I first started working at my company, I was told by the lawyers who work here that all I had to do was mention my employer and I'd more than likely get out of jury duty, since I was infested by mere contact with the legal profession. Things have changed since then--now even the lawyers themselves are getting seated on juries.

---

A couple things from that VF article: It assumes that a candidate should be "sane enough to be President." Isn't wanting to be President kind of insane? And who was our last sane one? Carter? Before him?

Also:

Neither reporter—both of whom accompanied Rudy on his campaign trips—appeared to have asked the obvious question (it's a reasonable question for all politicians, but it's professional negligence not to ask it of Rudy): whether he's on antidepressants or any other pharmacological mood stabilizers.

Everybody who has a government security clearance has to answer questions about mental health and sign a release form for investigators to check with their doctors about prescriptions. This makes me wonder if presidential candidates have to pass a clearance investigation before being nominated? Or do we rely on the election process to be the investigation?

---

I've never tried to get out of jury duty; it keeps the system working. Once I got called and had a legitimate thing (college finals), last time I got called I went. About 10 or so they let us all go home, and they gave us $6 and validated parking. It's like I got a free day off work was taken downtown and bought ice cream.

Didn't suck.

Your experience was worse than mine, but when I was called a few months ago I was also surprised at how many people had been victims of crime or connected to it

I remember my close girlfriends and I having a discussion about abuse/rape. Out of the 7 of us two have been raped, one more than once, two sexually assaulted, two abused by boyfriends and one molested as a child. Out of 7 women 5 had had something like that happen to them.

---

Jesus, Dana, that sounds like a terrible case.

Damn, Daisy.

---

DC has an EXTREMELY small jury pool - I've been called every two years (plus a few days) since I got registered to vote. I've also gotten called for federal court jury duty twice, and that's a major pain - they keep you for two weeks, and can extend it if they feel it's needed.

---

I was told that, even if eligible, I'd be unlikely to be kept on a violent crime jury because of the whole krav thing and training cops and abuse victims and working part time for the ADA. Bogus?

Fred is right, it is presumed to affect how you will weight the testimony of law enforcement or how you will weight the fact that people were charged and arrested. Same with knowing people in jail, too. Your relationship with cops would not be enough for *me* to kick you off, though. It would have to be a family member or very close friend, or you work with them daily. I mean, jurors usually take their job pretty seriously.

Voir dire is different in every court though. In my trial a few years ago we sent out extensive questionnaires to the venire, about 200-300 people strong, did some quick removals in the entire venire based on whether they knew the people in the case, and then did individualized voir dire that lasted about 10-20 minutes per. It took four days.

When I was called a month ago, they seated 16 people in the box, gave us a laminated sheet with twenty questions (profession, education, connection to law enforcement or courts/trials, can you apply the law, etc.) that we read the answers to in sequence with some people being rejected for cause, and the lawyers had some unannounced time-- 12 minutes maybe-- to quiz us individually or as a group. It took a couple hours to seat the jury.

---

I've heard that, statistically, one in three females have been sexually molested in one form or another. As the 'one', it seems to me that is a conservative count. Then again, I'm a person people tell things to, so maybe I am just more exposed. But seriously? I don't know if I've ever met a woman who could say that nothing of that sort has ever happened to her or her close ones.

I guess to prevent us from being tampered with.

One jury I was going to be picked for took a break. I went to the bathroom and heard two women talking about the guilt of someone they were there for. As we went back into the jury room, I realized that one of them was the defendant's mother. I vowed to not let the bathroom discussion sway me...after all, they could have been talking about someone else, right?

Then, I heard the defendant tell his mother that he was going to fight the charge. She looked at him incredulously and shouted, "Why on earth would you do that?"

t hand raised like Hermoine Granger

Um. Your Honor? May I be excused?

---

When I was on a jury, we filled out a questionaire, and then for certain answers, you went up to have a more private conversation with the lawyers and judge -- I know I didn't have to talk about how I was a crime victim in front of everyone.

---