I am serving on the "Grand Jury". When the cops in the movies say "The Grand Jury has handed down the indictment"? That's a reference to what I am doing for the next two weeks. Surprise.It's lucky about the two weeks, all the other people who hemmed and hawed about duty ended up with a four week, eight to five stint. When they came to me, I said I was able to serve with no problems.
My thanks to the presiding judge who must have noticed my pale skin and blinking sun shocked eyes, and let me take the last two weeks of another juror's term they were unable to finish. A two week term of ten to five thirty. Now, who is a lucky Miau-Miau?
My jury (Jury III) does property crimes in the morning and drug crimes in the afternoon. I sit in a little room with these six other people that is Classic Institutional Beige, but with pretty comfy black chairs, a fridge and boiling hot water for tea! I also got this nice lanyard thing that lets me in the employees entrance.
This is how my day goes: The District Attorney working the case comes in the door and tells us about the charges and a little back ground, they then bring in witnesses and at the end the officer who took the report or was there for, or solved the crime comes in and gives us his story. We handle about eight or nine of these cases a day. Some where around one o'clock they give us a two hour lunch.
The cops really do catch things while they are happening, but they all seem to be the stupid crimes. Or crimes so stupid they worked for the criminal and they repeated the scheme until they eventually got caught. Tales of amazing criminal stupidity! I guess speed just rots what little brain the users are using.
Different cops, different people, different story. It's actually very interesting, these sordid stories I help the judicial system adjudicate. But I do wish the pay was better. Ten bucks for the first three days and twenty five a day for the rest. That's almost, an almost new fridge.
