Jury Duty

Jury Duty - June 23, 2015

When I was 18 years old, I was summoned for Jury Duty. I felt so nervous back then. Being under a spotlight, questioned by lawyers, looking at the defendant, etc. It gave me butterflies. I remember calling the night before and was given instructions to call again in the morning, so I did, only to find out that I was cancelled. I was so relieved and went on with my life.

17 years later, I was summoned again. I was so mad. Here, it was my summer break and I have to give up my vacation to go into jury duty! Who knows how long the trial would last? I was bitter. The week leading up to it, I became even more bitter. I was planning on going to Kalalau in two weeks. What if I couldn't go because the trial was extended? Fuck!

I tried to change my mindset and think more positively. I called the night before and the recording said to come in the next morning at 8:45am. Well, "I ain't cancelled", I told myself. I had a good night sleep, woke up in the morning, and got ready by 7:30am. I was ready before 6:45am, maybe because I didn't want to rush myself. The drive to the courthouse was short, albeit some traffic. As I was driving on Alakea Street, I missed the Alii Place parking structure. I had to drive down the road until I could make a right turn. I then had to make my way around the block to get back to Alakea Street. I entered the Alii Place parking structure and seen the cost of parking for the day, $21...expensive.

I had to report to District Court third floor. I went through the metal detectors and made my way up towards the third floor. To my surprise over 40 people were hanging outside the baliff's office. At about 8:52am, the baliff asked us to go into a room and gave us directions on what will be doing for the day. All I remember was that she said the trial is expected to last only 2 days. Relief went over me as I knew I wasn't going to miss my trip to Kauai in two weeks. Now I was hoping that I would get excused from jury duty.

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We were told to report to Judge To'oto'o's courtroom on the 8th floor. As I entered the courtroom, I got exited, I kinda wanted to be selected now. The selection process is interesting. They pull from what is called a jury wheel where names are picked randomly. The judge's assistant picks the names. If your name is chosen, you are to walk to the jury box. After all 12 names are selected, the judge asked some basic questions, questions like are you a U.S. citizen?, are you able to be fair?, etc. After that, the attorneys get to ask questions. What I find is so amazing about attorneys is that they have to convince a jury, people whom they never seen or met before in their lives to decide someone's fate. I think its the most difficult psychological job in the world. Imagine - to convince 12 people to decide one way or the other. That's hard to do.

Now I know attorneys have an agenda. They brought up some scenarios and asked us what we would decide. One scenario was a senior student who got kicked out of school for marijuana. The prosecution was asking all the jurors if we should give the student a second chance even though the rule was the rule. A few people in the jury said yeah they would give them a second chance. After the questioning, the attorneys can excuse 3 jurors each. When jurors get excused, the judges assistant pulls from the jury wheel. Low and behold my name was chosen. The prosecuting attorney questioned me and so did the defense attorney. I did my best to answer all their questions and they went on. After they selected the jurors. They had to select the two alternate jurors. What I didn't know was that the alternate jurors had to stay throughout the entire trial. They pretty much are the jury, only they don't get to deliberate.