I Survived

Well this past week has been a very interesting and somewhat difficult week. It started when I received my Jury Service notification for the month of Feb. Wouldn't you know it, I was selected to go in on Tues. It was a very long selection process. The jury wasn't selected till 4:30 pm (we started at 8:15 am. Of all the bad luck I was one of the lucky 13 selected. There were 10 women and 3 men. (one would be an alternate but we wouldn't know which one till the very end of the trial just before we went into deliberations) Any way to make a long story short and to skip the many unpleasant details of the trial, it was a rape charge. We listened to 9 testimonies on Wednesday (very long day-I was drained by the end of the day just from listening). Thursday we listened to more testimonies and I think we went into deliberations around 3:45pm. We had our vote around 5:10 pm. (I wasn't the alternate, they just drew a name out of a bowl, it was one of the men) The vote was 11 to 1 that he was not guilty. After more discussion the 1 changed to not guilty. That all sounds simple in writing, trust me not the case!!! I feel bad for both parties involved. These were young college students who made some very poor choices thru out the course of the evening and night. This all took place at a MAJOR party. Nothing good can come from alcohol. I would have liked to have been able to give my vote of guilty (the guy was a pig to put it nicely-at least while intoxicated), but the state couldn't prove their case to the standards we were given on paper. I'm glad to be done with it. I'm sure I won't ever forget the experience but I hope to forget the details. (unlikely) Unfortunately I have to call in the rest of the month to see if I'm selected again. I'm crossing my fingers.