call of jury duty

so i got called for jury duty. it's my 3rd time. but the first two i was able to get excused cuz i was living in CA. I was resistant to go and was trying to think of a way to get out of it. They only pay you $30 + gas mileage for each day. Guess everyone hates it cuz it messes up their work schedule.

So i ended up being the first called to be on one of the 12 jury seats. There was a pool of about 70 other people. They all stayed and had to cram into a small court room. The judge then explained that the dude was accused of 2 accounts of attempted murder, possession of tons of firearms, breaking and entering, and theft. Everyone was silent, and was like.. daaaayum this is pretty serious! I think the guy is claiming he's not guilty and was using self-defense. And technically he's innocent until proven guilty. but with all those charges against him, it doesn't look so good.

what's interesting is that you can never really prove something without a doubt. Even if all the evidence points that someone is guilty, you only have without a reasonable doubt. The prosecutor made it sound like she didn't have too much evidence except people's testimonies. The defendant kept saying, the burden is on the prosecutor to prove he's guilty, and don't make a judgement until you've heard both sides and all the evidence.

I kinda wanted to get out of it cuz it would be like 8-430 for like 5 days. They had like tons of witnesses that needed to testify. But i was curious about what exactly happened and if he was guilty or not.

So the prosecutor and the defendant's attorney cross examined all of us on the jury. They want to make sure that there's no biases that will affect their judgement. They asked us individually a series of challenge questions to weed out if we'd be impartial or not.

I was asked, "If someone gave a believable testimony that you took as fact, would that be enough for you to decide if someone was guilty or not?" I was like.. uhh im not sure. If it came down to one person's testimony without any concrete evidence, it's kinda hard to make a black or white judgement call.

They asked a lot of questions about perception, accuracy of testimonies, and memory. Sometimes people have a difficult time telling the exact order of events, or specifics of traumatic experiences. They demonstrated how people react to certain stimuli in different ways. How one person could see a dog as friendly or frighting, or how people respond to a haunted house in different ways. The defendant had everyone look around the room for 20 seconds and then had us close our eyes. He then asked, now how many exit signs are there in this room? I guessed 2 which was right. But it showed how just because we went through an experience it doesn't mean we recollect or notice all the details.

I got asked what i went to school for. And i said, it was a seminary. He said, what made u decide to go to a seminary. I paused and said, uh God. I think i was excused because they don't want people with any religious faith background.

They kicked off like 7 other of the jurors before me. They kept replacing seat number 7's juror. One guy was like, i can't hear too well cuz im old. So the judge gave him the boot. Then one guy played dumb and was like, I don't understand english well. So he got pardoned. Then one lady was like im afraid of guns, so she got to leave. Then someone was in the military reserve and had fire arm training and was excused. Then each side got to pull out jurors and not give any reason for replacing the jury. So i was asked to leave. I dunno if i jus looked too young, or if they didn't like that i had christian values which could be seen as a bias.

Im glad i got to get off instead of staying another 4-5 long days. but a part of me was curious and wanted to get to have a say after hearing all the evidence. it was kinda weird when everyone was cracking jokes and laughing a lot when this dude is possibly going to jail for some serious crimes. jury duty kinda sucks, but if u get a murder/ attempted murder case it gets super interesting. well that was my law and order experience.