The defendant yelled at the jury after they found her guilty and my friend was haunted by that.

That'd be wrenching. Our not-a-defendant didn't yell at anyone; he just hung his head and looked dejected, and his lawyer patted his arm. He left almost immediately (disabled man hoping to end Dept. of Aging conservatorship and transfer back out into the world; his caretakers felt, and we agreed after an hour of talk, that he may be ready someday but that day is not now), and several of the jurors stayed behind to talk to his lawyer and try to get consoling messages to him.

It was absolutely the right thing to do, but it just felt shitty. He ended his testimony with, "I know I need help, but I just want to work and have my own room and maybe someday have a girlfriend. I don't want to die alone in a hospital."

I had mixed emotions about taking a medical exemption(Not so much about my actual health...constitutionally I'm a hardy peasant.) But I do need an attendant, and my mother needs to, you know, work and get paid. And if the county paid a posse of giggling teens to give me a pee break...hello, mistrial!ETA: Crazy-ironic JZ crosspost. ETA2; "Confidential" might be the only c-word that might not apply in that scenario. sadly.

Oh, that sounds really hard, JZ.

We had our icecream and sent our intern off, it's all terribly sad. It felt like things were just getting started. I swear, give me a skeleton budget, but if we had one more staff member from April to October, we'd be golden. Not an intern (who is either a college or highschool student, which means May to August) or a volunteer (which means they have a life and are unreliable and have short hours), but someone we can train and rely on, things would be so much easier. But that costs at least $5000. But between boss, who gets shunted with tons of administrative stuff, and me, who is tasked with supervising volunteers in tasks that are broad stroke and we are sure are f***-up proof, doing the finer stuff gets lost, and now we're in crazy watering season, so our plants don't die, and that's not something we can pawn off to one-off volunteers.

We had a great girl last year who was very interested in getting into the biz, but got realistic and took a full-time job as a secretary instead. I get it, but it sucks, for her and for me.

Odd coincidence, I just received a summons to jury duty, myself.

JZ, I was called up for jury duty in Arkansas in 2003. The system there was that you were in the pool for three months, and had to call in each weekend to find out whether you had to report to the courthouse that Monday for random selection and voir dire. I had to report five times, was selected three times: one criminal case and two civil cases. I was very glad that they were each only one-day trials.

One of the things all the jurors seemed to agree on, in all the cases, was how intensely we disliked how all the attorneys handled their roles. They always seemed to spend a great deal of time on irrelevancies, and never asked the questions we wanted answered. On the first case (the criminal case), the only way I was able to get past that was to write about it afterwards, just to get it out of my head, so I hope your post here helps you similarly.

The most awkward question asked in voir dire was, "What does 'beyond a reasonable doubt' mean to you?" No one had a pat answer to that the first time around.

We have one-day-one-trial per year. So if you get called, you first find out the night before if you actually have to go to the courthouse. If not, you can still be called in the 12 months. Then if you go to the courthouse, I think you are off the hook for a year, not sure. You're definitely off the hook for a year if you get seated.

The last time I got to voir dire, it was for a mesothelioma .... asbestos lung case. Which was expected to last 3 months. Was so relieved not to be on THAT jury. OMG. Oh, and I realized I accidentally lied in voir dire after the fact. I do have close relations working in a medical field, more specifically, cancer research. MUST.REMEMBER.THAT.

I haven't gotten called since I moved back to MA, and I think it's weird, since I've had jury duty every other place I've ever lived.

Although I should hush my mouth, because they closed my local courthouse, and I'm not sure where I'd have to go or how I would get there.

I was called up for jury duty in Arkansas in 2003. The system there was that you were in the pool for three months, and had to call in each weekend to find out whether you had to report to the courthouse that Monday for random selection and voir dire

Hell really is other people. This has got to be the worst I have ever heard. The worst.

I got called up to jury duty three times while I was living in Philly. The first time was understandable, but you'd think someone would've then made a note that I wasn't actually American.

This has got to be the worst I have ever heard.

Consequence of a small population, I think. Fort Smith may be the second-largest city in Arkansas, but it still has only about 85,000 people total, only about 125,000 in the whole county.