jury duty

first of all i've had bronchitis for over a week and it's been miserable. more miserable than any other time i've been sick mainly because i had jury duty for 3 days. had i gone in to see the doctor last tuesday i would have gotten a note and would have probably gotten out of jury duty or it might have just postponed it. well, now that it's over i am glad it's done and i'm good for at least one year. i think the last time i was called was about 2 years ago. and that time i just waited in the jury room for a whole day and i was released at the end of the day. what a waste this case was! for starters i had to appear at the e.l.a. court room and around noon i was transferred to the metropolitan court house in downtown los angeles. i tried to get out it, no luck! of course i had to get lost for almost an hour (not my fault) the juror lady gave us all wrong directions. biatch! anyway, i finally got there thanks to tony and at around 3:00 we all got called for a case on the 7th floor. the case was about some hoodlum (at least he looked like one) who was being charged with assault and battery. he choked his ex girl friend back in may of this year and because the deputy who interviewed his ex, wrote up the report he was being charged. we heard testimony from the deputy, an eyewitness, ex girlfriend and the investigator handling the case. it was all interesting, most of the time but what a waste of time it was! the lawyers are all new and very young and that was pretty gut wrenching to see. i could not believe how much of the tax payers money is wasted on a case like this. the ex's testimony was all garbage because she was a hostile witness. we all her and the ex were making eyes at each other and she just didn't want to look bad with, as they called it "the neighborhood" and conveniently forgot the whole story. i just wanted to yell at her and tell her how pist i was! and now that i have found out that it's a misdemeanor and the guy will not do time in jail, it is more of a waste of time!!! the deliberation was pretty interesting and it took us about one hour and a half. two of the jurors voted not guilty so we all had to talk about the major points of the case and convinced them to change their vote to guilty. there was no reason what so ever that this guy had to choke the chunti chick. he could have just walked away. so the judge read the verdict our loud and i could not get myself to look at his family or him. i felt a bit intimidated walking to my car, so i told the girls and we all walked each other to our cars. the judge then asked each of us if to say our vote out loud for a final count on the verdict. that was pretty gut wrenching for me. you know me, nervous nancy. :)

the good thing is that i made some new acquaintances who i had a good time eating lunch and i plan keeping in touch with and the other thing is that i got out work the rest of the time, too bad i don't get paid. oh well. =)