Jury Duty

Earlier in September I got the dreaded mail notice summoning me to jury duty for the last Monday and Tuesday in September.  So last Monday I dutifully transported myself to the Milwaukee County courthouse to spend my days hoping and hoping my number would never be picked.  I had almost got through the first day when just at the end of the day 30 of us were selected to be voir dired (if you can use it that way).  The short message is that I was selected to sit on the jury and get an more inside snapshot of our legal system in action - because who wouldn't want a retired chemist on their panel.

I won't describe the actual trial but let me just say being on a jury involves sitting around a lot waiting to actually go into the court room and hear the trial.  There seemed to be a lot of discussion happening just between the lawyers and judge that we weren't allowed to hear which meant hours for us jurors trying to stay occupied in the jury room.  The trial we heard was relatively short and seemed pretty straight forward and we finished everything up on Wednesday.  I must admit I'm fairly happy I won't be summoned at least for another four years.  On the plus side, I now know where the Recorder of  Deeds is located - in case I should ever have a deed that I should need recorded.