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juries and books
Jan. 11th, 2005 05:09 pmSo today I went down to the municipal court and was selected for jury duty! It was very exciting in a peculiar sort of way. The cases heard by this court are all misdemeanor cases and only punishable by fines. the case I heard today was about an alleged traffic violation and a ticket. Texas is one of the few states that allows people to request a jury trial for these offenses, which I did not know. Long story short, we found the defendant not guilty because the prosecution totally dropped the ball and could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the guy had done something illegal!
I was sort of surprised that the prosecutor only called the police officer who wrote the ticket, which was for making an illegal right hand turn on a red light. The officer claimed there were visible no turn signs, but acknowledged because of the construction that the signs went up and down a lot. I was quite surprised that no one called TX DOT or another road agency to see if there were actually these signs up or not. The defendant had taken pictures two weeks later of the intersection on the advice of a lawyer. It was exciting because the prosecutor objected to admitting the pictures into evidence, and the attorneys wrangled at the bench over it. for the record, the defense attorney was kinda doofy and had a much better suit than the prosecutor. It was odd. The judge, who looked exactly like Jack McCoy from Law & Order, was pretty interesting.
I got to be the jury foreperson! I signed the verdict and handed it over and answered the judge!! Eee. Anyhow. We all agreed that the central issue was the presence and visibility of signs, and that no one was able to tell us conclusively that such signs were present at the time of the incident. So we had no choice but to acquit, as reasonable doubt existed in our minds about the heart of the matter.
The judge thanked us many times for doing our civic duty and holding up our legal system. I was given a certificate for serving with a gold seal that I might just frame and hang up somewhere. Hah! I sound silly, but it really was fascinating and exciting to me. I'm so glad I got the chance to do this.
So I walked from 35 to Congress, and watched the Legislature folks swarm over the restaurants and cafes before i hopped a bus to campus. I picked up a transcript, drank coffee, talked houses with Heidi at Metro and talked all kinds of stuff with Sarah. We had a good afternoon just talking, and visitng Half Price. I picked up a few random books, and restrained myself from more.
I'm almost done with some laundry, though the one I set for hot water got cold, and the one I set for hot got hot water! I am baffled. At least it's working.
No word yet on the job thing, but I'm hoping.
I was sort of surprised that the prosecutor only called the police officer who wrote the ticket, which was for making an illegal right hand turn on a red light. The officer claimed there were visible no turn signs, but acknowledged because of the construction that the signs went up and down a lot. I was quite surprised that no one called TX DOT or another road agency to see if there were actually these signs up or not. The defendant had taken pictures two weeks later of the intersection on the advice of a lawyer. It was exciting because the prosecutor objected to admitting the pictures into evidence, and the attorneys wrangled at the bench over it. for the record, the defense attorney was kinda doofy and had a much better suit than the prosecutor. It was odd. The judge, who looked exactly like Jack McCoy from Law & Order, was pretty interesting.
I got to be the jury foreperson! I signed the verdict and handed it over and answered the judge!! Eee. Anyhow. We all agreed that the central issue was the presence and visibility of signs, and that no one was able to tell us conclusively that such signs were present at the time of the incident. So we had no choice but to acquit, as reasonable doubt existed in our minds about the heart of the matter.
The judge thanked us many times for doing our civic duty and holding up our legal system. I was given a certificate for serving with a gold seal that I might just frame and hang up somewhere. Hah! I sound silly, but it really was fascinating and exciting to me. I'm so glad I got the chance to do this.
So I walked from 35 to Congress, and watched the Legislature folks swarm over the restaurants and cafes before i hopped a bus to campus. I picked up a transcript, drank coffee, talked houses with Heidi at Metro and talked all kinds of stuff with Sarah. We had a good afternoon just talking, and visitng Half Price. I picked up a few random books, and restrained myself from more.
I'm almost done with some laundry, though the one I set for hot water got cold, and the one I set for hot got hot water! I am baffled. At least it's working.
No word yet on the job thing, but I'm hoping.