My Civic Duty!

For years now I have dodged the jury duty bullet by very carefully placing my jury duty summons in the garbage can as soon as it comes out of the mailbox.  Some might wonder how I could possibly due something like that, well it is very easy I opened up the mailbox pulled out the summons and threw it away.  Nope, I am not concerned that they are going to have a warrant out for my arrest, there is no way to prove I every received the jury summons in the first place.  Once the government starts sending things certified mail then I will start to worry! 

On day one of jury duty I was picked to be on the jury, yep that is right ladies and gentleman you are friends with juror number 6!! We went through hours of questions and many potential jurors before both parties agreed on the jury.  The trial was about a guy we will call "D" and a girl we will call "E" who were involved in a traffic accident in Huntington Beach on Halloween night.  E had made a left turn in front of D and hit D.  E took full responsibility of the accident and that was a non issue at this point.  D was suing E for $$$ to cover his medical bills, loss wages and pain and suffering.

 At first I kind of felt bad for D because he is young and he was claiming his life was in shambles ever since the accident occurred and that he was unable to work, go to school or have any quality of life.  That was until the moment D opened his mouth and started talking.  Man oh Man was D the biggest loser of losers.  OMG!  Seriously?  I don't even know where to begin with D and and all of his ridiculousness.   To make a long story short D was fired from his job 5 months before the accident, but yet claimed he quit his job a month before the accident so he could go back to school. HELLO retard school starts in August not September, so the whole quitting your job so you could back to school story is a lie.  D claims that he has been in so much pain since the accident that he cannot work, go to school or get out of bed, well again retard you made it to court so you must be able to get out of bed.  D only went to the doctor 6 times since the accident (the accident happened 3 years ago), one would think that if you are in so much pain you would be going to the Doctor more than 6 times in 3 years, I don't think the pain was really that bad!! 

Well, lets just say the rest on the morning on day 2 of jury duty and the trial for D & E did not go very well!  However, things did get real interesting at about 11:00am on day 2.  D was on the witness stand and was completely digging himself a hole that he was never going to get himself out of and his lawyer could see that things were going south very quickly and asked to speak to the judge privately.  The judge agreed and both lawyers and the judge went behind closed doors.  While the judge and both lawyers were back there everyone was asked to remain quiet so that the court recorder could listen through his headset and record their conversation.  Well, the star witness D started to get upset and was talking loudly and causing a scene and the court recorder yelled "STOP" to get everyone to stop talking so that he could concentrate and do his job.  At the same time the OC Sheriff's officer that was in the room went over to D to tell him to knock it off D's dad said in a loud voice "shoot the jurors with the gun". 

"Shoot the jurors with the gun?" what the heck?  I was shocked to hear that statement come out of this man's mouth and could not figure out who he was talking to.  It was crazy, was he telling his son to shoot the jurors with the gun? Seconds later the Judge and lawyers came out and we were told to take a break.  As I was walking out of the courtroom I had a chance to tell this man who was kind of in charge of the courtroom who I will call "R" what was said by D's dad.  A few minutes into our break I was called into the courtroom and I was told that the Judge wanted to speak to me.  The judge asked me what had happened and I told him that I heard D's dad say "shoot the jurors with the gun".  Well, D's dad starting yelling at me telling me that he did not say that.  The judge then asked me if I felt that I could stay for the rest of the trail (it was expected to last 7 days) and I said that I was not sure if I could stay.  I was so scared that D's dad was going to come after me on my way to the bathroom or parking lot and seriously hurt me.  The Judge then thanked me for my service and sent me home.  The judge did understand my safety concerns and had a deputy walk me to my car.  On the way to get my parking ticket validated both the deputy and myself heard through her radio that more deputies were needed on the 6th floor, the 6th floor was where I had just come from.  The deputy and I continued down to the 1st floor and we were standing at the security counter, as I was standing there I turned around and all of a sudden D's dad was right in front of me.  It was crazy, I thought he was going to come after me but he walked out the front door and did not cause a scene.   Later on I found out that after I had left the and the jurors all returned from their break D's dad went off on the them yelling, screaming and cussing them out.  At that point the Judge declared a mistrial and the case was dismissed and everyone went home. 

I went home and was really shaken up, it was so crazy to have some random guy threaten to kill you for no reason at all.  I went back to work today and had to report the incident to the Sheriff's Department in RSM because this crazy man knows where I work and what my name is.  So for the next week I will have the Sheriff's department checking in on me throughout the day at work, waiting for me in the parking lot when I leave work and they will be patrolling my neighborhood more to make sure this crazy man is not lurking around waiting for me to come out and attack me.  I have to say this is one of the perks of being a city employee, it seems that we get better care than the average citizen, that is fine by me since I live alone and if you google my name my address pops up at the top of the page. 

This is the short version of this week's events, I am emotionally drained and I would of never thought this would of happened to me.  I hope and pray this is the closest I ever get to any violence and that it will never happen again.  Part of me is thinking that the next time I get called to jury duty I will go back to my old filing system and throw it away as soon as it comes in the mail! 

The bright side of the day was I got to spend my afternoon teaching swim lessons, playing and laughing with my friends the McCray's.  I so look forward to seeing them on swim lesson days and Brayden is just so cute!!!

Look Mom, I am doing my big arms!!