Jury Duty Part I: Getting on the Jury.

A few weeks ago, I got called for my first Jury Duty. I've known other people that have been called but never had to show up. I've never known anyone who actually had to go in, let alone get on a jury.

The way it works in Colorado is this: They send you a summons via mail when your name is picked at random from Voter Records, Drivers Licenses, Income Tax Filings and State ID Cards. A pool of several hundred is picked and you are assigned a number. Then the night before you are to appear you check online or by phone to see if you need to show up. In my case over 500 numbers were eliminated and 65 were left to appear.

Now right here I have to say that many people talk about trying to avoid getting a trial by saying various things. Since I went in to jury duty instead of working, and I had no work to do, I was hoping for a trial, but I at least wanted to get into the courtroom and be questioned.

We signed in, watched a video explaining a little bit of what to expect, and then about 25 of the Jurors were let go leaving about 40 or so. I was one of the ones still remaining.

That day they had two trials starting, and for the first trial they had selected 20 people to go in for a 6 person Jury. They lined us up in the order we were selected and I was #3. We were lead into the courtroom through the front door and the first 14 of us took our places in the Jury Box.

The judge was very pleasant but serious in giving us background on trials and why we were there. She made us feel pretty comfortable and spent 20 minutes describing what we were about to do. The trial would start that afternoon and go into the morning and we would be done by noon. Starting with Juror #1, we had to go through a questionaire that was posted on an easel in front of us, regarding some personal information, Name, marital status, how long in Colorado, how long in the county, Children's ages and occupations, Spouse's occupation, parent's occupation, and then several questions about the hobbies, books, TV shows and Movies that we liked. The judge would occassionally interrupt us and ask us questions about our answers.

After all 14 of us in the box went through the questions, the prosecutor got to address us. Since it was a drunk driving case, she asked us questions about drunk people, usually setting up a hypothetical situation to bring us to her question. I was only asked one question and that was whether a person could be has to be loud and obnoxious in order to be drunk. My answer was "No". She was very business like, kind of like a teacher.

The defense attorney then got up and asked questions. His demeanor was more friendly, but seemed fake, in that he wanted you to like him. He asked me no direct questions, but asked many others questions.

Then came the elimination round. Juror #1 was excused by the judge, as she had members of her family who were alcoholics, and felt she could not make a fair judgement. Juror #7 who now became Juror #1 was let go by the prosecution. Juror #4 was let go by the defense, Juror #8 became Juror #4, and after a few other elimations the Jury was set and Juror #3 was still in the box. I was going to trial.

Next: The Trial