Jury Duty, Round II...

Whoever first came up with the phrase, "The Wheels of Justice turn slowly..." really wasn't kidding around.

I understand that the jury selection for a criminal trial expected to last multiple months would, by nature, be more complicated and take more time than an open-and-shut, two-day-long corker. But I didn't expect it would take this long.

My jury panel was first called into court over eight days ago. Eight days later, and a total of ten hours of courtroom time, I still don't know whether I'll be serving on the jury or not.

The first part of the jury selection was merely weeding all those people that had a valid excuse as to why they wouldn't be able to sit on a jury for two months. We started off with approximately four-hundred and twenty potential jurors. It took two days to whittle that group down to about one-hundred and sixty of us -- people who weren't able to come up with an excuse good enough to get out of it.

This morning, we reconvened at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. We reported at 9:30am and sat around in a jury lounge for a good hour-and-a-half, when we were called back into the courtroom. Having cleansed the jury panels of people that have better things to do for two months, we moved onto cleansing the panels of people who had obvious conflicts -- people who were had personal relationships with the victim, the defendant, the judge, the Crown Attorneys, the Defense Counsel or anybody on the list of potential witnesses. It took a good half-hour just to go through all of the names. Twenty people were excused for these reasons. This left about one-hundred and forty of us.

The next step was to divide us into panels of twenty, panels that would be brought back into the courtroom one by one to face questions from the judge, the Crown Attorneys and the Defense Counsel, and find out whether they would be accepted to serve on the jury. It was a random draw. It took a further two hours just to divide the group into seven groups.

I was placed in the fifth of seven groups. The first four groups were allowed to go to lunch, to be called back into court when after the break. The final three groups were dismissed until the next day.

My current instructions are to report back to court at 2:00pm tomorrow. From what I've read in the news, seven jurors were chosen today, out of sixty-three panelists. That would leave at least five more jurors, plus alternates, to come out of the remaining seventy-odd panelists.

I'm not out of the woods yet.

A Surfeit of Civic Responsibility...

Today, is sponsored by the words, "civic" and "responsibility".

Today, I report back to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice for Round Two. I get to sit in service; I get to find out (hopefully sooner rather than later) whether I will have to spend an estimated two months of my life deciding on the fate of a man accused of multiple, heinous crimes.

After a lot of thought this week, I made a decision. I want to serve. I made my case last week regarding being excused from such a lengthy trial -- something I felt I had to do to avoid a difficult work situation -- but the judge rejected my reasoning. If I get called up today to sit on the jury panel, I'll be honest with any questions from the lawyers and judge, and let the chips fall where they may. None of this trying to get out of it with any "I hate all blacks, Jews and homos" bullshit.

That's not the only civic duty I'll get to undertake today.

Today, I also get to exercise my right to vote. I'll be stopping off on my way home, to cast my ballot in the 2008 Canadian Federal Election. This is not a particularly onerous task, since my polling station is right on the ground-floor of my building. I can vote between picking up my mail and getting on the elevator up to my apartment.

Yep.

Today, I'll be doing my part for Queen and country.

Thank God we don't have the draft going too.