My Week as Juror: The Jury --Courtroom Procedures / Book Interviews

Quote for the Day:
The mark of a good parent is that s/he can have fun while being one.  (Marcelene Cox)
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Continuing with my thoughts about serving on jury duty last week...

Once the final jury is selected, we took our seats in the jury box at the front left of the courtroom.  The clerk had us raise our right hands and swear to the solemn oath.   We were given our juror badges (necklace type)  to wear while in the courthouse.  The trial began after  we had lunch that day since the selection process had taken so long.

After lunch we were taken to the jury room by the court deputy.  The jury room itself was fairly small with no windows and one door. Just large enough for a long conference table with 12 swivel chairs, nothing on the walls, no clock or pictures, an easel with a flip-pad for making charts and two bathrooms.  Ours was a little warm so we had a fan brought in on the last day.  There was usually water (hot and cold) and coffee with condiments on the table.  We could open the door to summon the deputy but no one could come into our room since it was locked from the outside.  A deputy sat outside the jury room at all times.

Sometimes the wait to go to the courtroom was a few minutes; most often it was 15-30 minutes to an hour before we were summoned.  When we were called, the deputy unlocked the room we were in.    He would open the door to the courtroom and say "the jury is now present".  Everyone would stand up for us and then when we took our seats, they would sit down.  I always thought they did this for the judge like you see on TV (when the bailiff says "all rise"...). They may do that as well, but we were never present when the judge entered the courtroom.

We were given legal pads and pens and took notes as needed, which in this trial, were voluminous.  The prosecuting attorney(s) went first with their witnesses and evidence. This took 3 days.  The defense attorney then presented his case. The evidence is varied--lots of photos, recorded interviews, printed transcripts, physical exhibits of all kinds, timelines, expert and law enforcement witnesses.   Closing arguments were the last morning and lasted for about 3 hours.

Again, we were not allowed to discuss anything with each other for  7 days until deliberations began (this trial resumed on Monday after the weekend), so you can imagine how "bottled up" we were (especially we women who need our 25,000 words a day and in this case, more like 50,000!).  

TOMORROW:  Deliberations

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On a side note, I am in another book!  I complete forgot about this from several months ago.   

1.  Macs in the Ministry, by David Lang.

Here's an excerpt:

Email is now so ubiquitous as a communication medium it almost seems mundane. Yet the fact that so many people now use and check email regularly makes it one of the most effective forms of communication you can use. Beyond your day-to-day activities of communicating by email, all of which serve to promote your ministry at some level, consider using email as a way to publicize events, needs, praise reports, and prayer requests.

Every Thursday, Orlando Grace Church sends out its E-News, an email newsletter produced by one very dedicated volunteer. Tonya Travelstead collects a dizzying amount of information and uses her Mac to compile it into a PDF, which she mails to anyone who asks to receive it. The E-News begins with a devotional thought from the Senior Pastor, followed by a summary of the previous week’s sermon, a question and answer from the catechism, prayer requests and praise reports (including instructions for how to pray for various unreached people groups), a calendar of the week’s activities, announcements from various small group ministries, a listing of expecting mothers and their due dates, the latest reports from missionaries and ministries the church supports, and even listings of items people need, want to sell, or are willing to give away. As if all that weren’t enough, a separate email includes additional photos of people and events mentioned in that week’s E-News.

As should be obvious, the E-News has become the central form of communication for Orlando Grace Church. It’s so informative that members of the congregation who move away or begin attending other churches still ask to receive it.

2.  The other book for which I was interviewed last year was Hired @ Home by Sarah Hamaker.  She interviewed me about having a home business.