Jury Duty

Yesterday I had to report for Jury Duty. I seem to get called for Jury Duty an average of six times a year. Technically I know that is not possible, but it seems, still, to be true. Just when I have been dismissed from a case in one court, I get called to appear for another.

I'm not sure why this happens, but there do seem to be certain names that never get called and other that are called repeatedly. I did serve on juries, once in Los Angeles and once in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn case was one where guilt had already been decided, and those of us on the jury were tasked with deciding a dollar amount for damages. The case in LA was a DUI that was being contested, and our deliberations lasted for about 3 days, which was absurd. In the end, we wound up with a mistrial because this one dufus on the panel refused to listen to reason.

The process of deliberating with those people made me want to rip my own head off and go bowling with it. Most of them were incapable of following the judge's instructions, and the guy who caused the mistrial admitted that he was probably wrong, but he just wouldn't change his mind on principle. Nothing to do with the facts of the case, he just didn't want to change his vote, even though he knew he should. That experience did make me wonder if the system really works at all.

The case I was in jury selection for yesterday involved art forgery, which I actually think might have been a fascinating case. But I felt torn between being interested in the case itself and dreading the thought of being in a courtroom for the next two weeks or longer, and dreading most of all, the idea of having to deal with deliberations.

Not only that, but having just started two news jobs, I was loath to have to immediately be absent from them.

The pool of potential jurors was an interesting petri dish: professional, unprofessional, and people whom you wouldn't want to sit near on the bus. One guy sitting next to me sat with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, breathing heavily through his nose and rocking slightly. I couldn't tell if he was putting it on to try and get out of service, or if he was genuinely a little off.

Then there are the folks who belong to the "Department of Irrelevant Information" and choose to take any question asked by the judge and use it as an excuse to share personal anecdotes or opinions that had nothing to do with anything.

"I saw some sculptures once, and I didn't think they were very good!", "My blood glucose drives me crazy!" "I once met someone who had a postcard of a badger on his fridge", "I like prunes!". Very, very important information.

In the end, I was dismissed, I think because told them that I am friends with a woman who works in the prosecutor's office at the courthouse. I will wait for next week, when my next summons is sure to arrive.

My wine recommendation for today is not, in fact, a wine at all, but rather a liqueur, and aperatif which I bought in Prague, a little delight called Becherovka. The precise ingredients of this concoction are apparently such a closde secret that only three people in the world actually know the recipe.

The flavor of it is unlike anything I've ever had before: slightly sweet with delicate flavors of clove, cinnamon, allspice, and anise. In Prague they drink it with tonic and ice, but as I am not a big fan of tonic water, I either have it with soda, or by itself on the rocks. It is a nice, winter-time drink with all of those mulling spice notes. It might even be nice as a kind of toddy with hot water and lemon or orange.

Anybody else out there ever had Becherovka?