George Gordon Meade by NCinDC

Last week, for the first time in my life, I was summoned for jury duty.  Imagine the horrified look on my face when I received notice in the mail that sure enough, my time had come, the time to sit all day in a waiting room full of complete strangers and hope that I didn’t get picked as a juror.  My friends had all told me how terrible it was and provided me with many excuses to get out of being picked.  “Tell them that your uncle is a cop.  Tell them that you could never judge another person for what they may or may not have done.  Tell them that you’re a racist pig.  Tell them you have an uncontrollable bladder.”  But somehow, deep down inside, I had a morbid curiosity of seeing our legal system in action and actually did want to be picked.  I wanted to be on a jury of peers, to listen to a case, hear the judge bang on his desk with a gavel, hear an attorney yell, “Objection!”, deliberate for hours, and finally deliver a verdict which would decide the fate of the defendant.  I wanted Law & Order, only this wasn’t TV.

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