You may be wondering from the title of my blog. If I have heard it once this week, then I literally have heard it 195 times. Lucky me had to serve my first ever week as a juror this week. I have never done this and had no idea what to expect. I just knew that I would be struck Monday afternoon or Tuesday for sure. How couldn't I? My father is a minister/pastor and my husband is an assistant to the Recreation Minister. Plus I am "for the death penalty" (as everyone has told me to be so that I would get struck) so I just KNEW that I would be back to work Tuesday afternoon at the latest!! WRONG!!! And to make it worse, I have to go back 2 more weeks.
First of all, I was a little late on Monday morning. Traffic was terrible, parking was terrible, people were everywhere. I finally parked at the BJCC under the interstate and walked about 4 blocks to get back to where I needed to be. I parked at a meter that was obviously broken but said I had 5 hours so I prayed that I wouldn't have a ticket when I returned. I walked into the juror holding room, apologizing for being late. Fortunately there were other people also late. I realized there were about 250 people waiting in this room, most reading, some talking to other jurors, some on computers. I found a corner seat and crawled over 3 people to get there. The Judge comes in and welcomes us. She states that she will then take any excuses, medical first, as to why you can not be here to serve on jury. I quickly thought and could not come up with a legitimate reason why I couldn't serve this week. She then says that she will begin with calling 18 people for Grand Jury. I start opening my book, prepared for a day of reading, and heard my name called about 10th or 11th. Seriously?? Did they call me right off the bat?? SO, I had to crawl back over 3 people to walk up front. I'm thinking, ok, they've called 18 of us so 6 of us will be sent back. I had NO idea what I was in for. They walk us across the street to the main civil court house and take us downstairs to a mini-courtroom. There were 3 rows of 6 seats, tiered. In the front is 3 seats on a platform with the end seat looking like the witness stand. I felt like I was watching Matlock or something. The DA for Jefferson County comes in to welcome us -- I had recognized him from tv. Then comes the bad news. He explains what being on Grand Jury means. As Grand Jury, all 18 of us will sit and listen to cases and decide to indite the defendant and send the case to trial. Basically, in English terms, it meant that I would be here all week, I would not be going back to the jury holding room and I would not be back at work by Tuesday afternoon. The really bad news came next - not only would we be here Monday - Thursday of this week, but we would be back for a week in October and a week in November. Um, seriously??? Your kidding??? Greg is going to kill me for missing a week in October. OMGosh! What am I into?? But then I thought - well, my GrandDaddy would be proud! He had served as foreman of the jury several times and here I was on a Grand Jury.
I made it through the first 4 days and it was not too bad. I actually enjoyed it - had fun having lunch with some of the other jurors. Some of the cases I could have gone without hearing and some of the photographs I would have been fine not seeing. It really opened my eyes as to what really goes on in the world. It made me SO thankful for my family, SO thankful for my husband for loving me so, and SO thankful for my God for protecting me and my family from these things. I quickly realized how blessed I am to not have grown up seeing some of these things and I can only pray the same for Noah. Though I can not talk about the cases I have heard, which my mom and dad find funny since I LOVE to talk, I will say that I have remembered the families of some of these cases in my prayers and obviously remembered the defendants in my prayers. They obviously are missing the love of the Lord and it is sad to think about!! Lord, THANK YOU for your love and protection!!!!
~Randi
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