Jury Duty

I've been on jury duty all week.  The judge told us today that the closing arguments will occur tomorrow morning, we will be brought in lunch, and after lunch we will begin our deliberations.  All I can say is that it's a case in Federal Court.  I've been concentrating so hard all week on everything that is being said that I found I was exhausted when I got home this afternoon and immediately took a long nap.  I'm glad for the opportunity to serve on a jury and I take it very seriously.  Once the trial is finished, I'll write about it, but not now.

This is the second time I've served as a juror.  The other time was perhaps 10-12 years ago in San Diego, on a DUI case that took a full 5 days.  Although we were not told why, I'm sure it was because the woman's license would be pulled because of prior offenses, and possibly she was facing jail time or a heavy fine for repeat offenses.  She challenged the arrest.  Unfortunately for her, the verdict was guilty.

The most remarkable thing to me about the case was that the prosecutor was totally blind, yet he had total command of all the facts and figures, and there were a number of charts and graphs.  After the trial was over he spoke with a few of the jurors who remained behind to talk to him.  We learned that he began losing his sight while he was in law school, and had to learn to function in a blind world.  He had a computer that he could access in the courtroom that had a head set attached, and he could locate what he wanted to review in his files, and have it spoken back to him via the head phones.  He rarely used it.  I admired him immensely.