12 Angry Men

Well, today I had to go in for jury duty, which has never happened to me before. Usually I just get dismissed the night before. Don has been on this thing about Ecuadorean volleyball games in Danbury, so we were thinking I might get one of those. But no, lucky me, wouldn't it be the day they are starting a murder trial, for the 2003 killing of a woman in our town of Ridgefield, which is not exactly a place that you expect people to get murdered with any regularity.

There were about 24 of us called - about 2/3 of us women, I noted with interest. They told us there were two trials scheduled for the day - one civil and one criminal. I guess everyone feels pretty ambivalent about jury duty - on the one hand, it's your civic duty, and it could be kind of interesting, I guess. But the idea that you have to disrupt your life for what could be an awfully long time is also unsettling. I sat there feeling kind of guilty that I was hoping to get out of it, while knowing that if I were the defendant, I'd want some smart people on my jury (assuming, of course, I didn't do it!). Anyway, we sat there all morning after hearing from a judge and watching a short video of instructions, and I did email. At 10:30 the clerk told us the civil suit had been settled, but that we'd all have to go into the courtroom in just a bit for the criminal case. Time dragged on. And at 1:00, just when you get to go to lunch, the clerk told us the defendant had taken a plea bargain ('copped a plea', if you watch too much TV!!). Don't know what he got, but we're looking at a case where the man didn't want to pay child support so he hit his ex-wife with a baseball bat, then strangled her to death. You know, I love police procedurals and mystery novels, but this one was a little too close for comfort. Anyway, I carried out my obligation, and I feel good about it - no moral ambivalence about jury duty for 3 more years!