jury duty

After living in Naples for 2 whole years, I got a summons for jury duty. It was only for one week. The process was that I’d check at 6:00pm on the day before I was supposed to show up to see if they really wanted me.

For the first 4 days, they said that I wasn’t on the schedule. On Thursday, at 6:01pm, I got a text from them telling me to drag my sorry behind to the courthouse at 8:15 on the following morning. So much for batting 1000.

This was my first experience in downtown Naples during the morning rush. Meh. I’ve seen worse. At the courthouse, after sitting around being bored for an hour or so, they started calling out names for jurors for a case. They pretty much emptied the room and hadn’t called my name. I was considering the possibility that I might be dodging a bullet, but they called me anyway – I was third-last on their list.

This was where I was presented with the worst pronunciation of my name so far – SKEE-RAY. The clerk was a native English speaker, but I guess is that she was trying to pronounce “squire” using Spanish pronunciation rules. One of the many reasons that this was a nitwit idea is that most Spanish words don’t start with the letter S.

Once we were in the courtroom, they explained that they were selecting jurors for a grand jury (Yikes! those things take months!) for a capital case (Really! Months!). They calmed us down by saying that the process does take months, but they’d only need the jury to show up for a couple of days. We were reminded that grand juries only indict or charge someone with a crime – they don’t convict or sentence anyone.

Then they explained that in Florida, the capital crimes are first degree murder and rape of a victim under 12 (yuck).

Next was that we had to say if we had issues with indicting someone with a capital crime. I don’t have issues with killing someone who deliberately commits murder or rapes someone under 12. My concern is that the States’ have a shoddy track record of convicting the wrong person. Indicting someone of a capital crime seemed to be a less bitter pill to swallow than convicting and sentencing them.

Happily, for me, they didn’t need me for this. They contented themselves with 30 some odd other jurors and I was mercifully sent home.

Naples was safe from my brand of justice.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment