Monday, July 11, 2011
Jul. 11th, 2011 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshortyToday was my court day – I was a one of 12 jurors hearing a case in federal court. They said this case would take three days but I think we would be done tomorrow, if we all agree, since only closing statements are left. I cannot talk about the case in any way until it is over even with fellow jurors so I will write about it only once it is done.
I think the interesting thing about being a juror, other than listening to the case, which I as a student of history of law find not the least boring, is meeting and chatting with other jurors. And since we can’t talk about the case with each other until we are told too, it is fun to talk about work and travel and Broadway shows. Half of us are teachers of some kind so we can all bitch about that.
I am starting to feel some anxiety about tomorrow and deliberating our verdict because this is someone’s life in our hands. And this is a criminal case so a person could go to jail. I guess we just have to do our best and let collective judgment stand.
I preordered my Harry Potter tickets today. Bear and I are going on Saturday. Can’t wait.
So what does one do when one of the stars of your movie is in a successful TV series? If you are Peter Jackson, you adjust your schedule to fit Martin Freeman’s “Sherlock” schedule and then apparently, hire Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock to Freeman’s Watson) to be in the Hobbit too. That makes me super excited about the movie even more.
Torchwood Radio play 1 “The Devil and Miss Carew” I'm glad I can listen to it on BBC radio for free. The music is creepy and so is that radio forecast. Torchwood music! Yay. Aw, hearing Ianto’s voice again! What I love about Torchwood is the humor. Fun bantering. Gwen’s “Yeah, whatever” was great. Old lady beating Gwen up and tying her up was great too – Jack and Ianto would so tease her later. Ianto’s driving! Rhys’s voices and rescuing Gwen by looking at browsing history! Evil Overlord rules, evil aliens! Don’t monologue. And the usefulness of Swiss Army Knife (Bear is currently obsessed with them so to me that line was really funny). I really miss Ianto. The plot is actually silly, but that is Torchwood and it works anyway.
I think the interesting thing about being a juror, other than listening to the case, which I as a student of history of law find not the least boring, is meeting and chatting with other jurors. And since we can’t talk about the case with each other until we are told too, it is fun to talk about work and travel and Broadway shows. Half of us are teachers of some kind so we can all bitch about that.
I am starting to feel some anxiety about tomorrow and deliberating our verdict because this is someone’s life in our hands. And this is a criminal case so a person could go to jail. I guess we just have to do our best and let collective judgment stand.
I preordered my Harry Potter tickets today. Bear and I are going on Saturday. Can’t wait.
So what does one do when one of the stars of your movie is in a successful TV series? If you are Peter Jackson, you adjust your schedule to fit Martin Freeman’s “Sherlock” schedule and then apparently, hire Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock to Freeman’s Watson) to be in the Hobbit too. That makes me super excited about the movie even more.
Torchwood Radio play 1 “The Devil and Miss Carew” I'm glad I can listen to it on BBC radio for free. The music is creepy and so is that radio forecast. Torchwood music! Yay. Aw, hearing Ianto’s voice again! What I love about Torchwood is the humor. Fun bantering. Gwen’s “Yeah, whatever” was great. Old lady beating Gwen up and tying her up was great too – Jack and Ianto would so tease her later. Ianto’s driving! Rhys’s voices and rescuing Gwen by looking at browsing history! Evil Overlord rules, evil aliens! Don’t monologue. And the usefulness of Swiss Army Knife (Bear is currently obsessed with them so to me that line was really funny). I really miss Ianto. The plot is actually silly, but that is Torchwood and it works anyway.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-12 03:59 am (UTC)I preordered my Harry Potter tickets today. Bear and I are going on Saturday. Can’t wait.
How exciting! I hope to see it this weekend, too. *crosses fingers*
Benedict Cumberbatch is going to be in The Hobbit, too? OMG! That's kind of fantastic!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-12 09:20 am (UTC)I got home and completely fell apart crying.
Not proven is a Scot's law thing - we have 'guilty', 'not guilty' and 'not proven'. Not proven is used when the jurors don't think there is enough evidence to find the person guilty or not guilty. It tends to cause a stooshie and a lot of people want rid of that verdict.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-12 10:01 pm (UTC)In America, we don't have an option 'not proven' and that would make a bit of difference, I think. 'Not proven" is pretty much 'not guilty' here. The burden of proof is on the government and all 12 jurors need to come to unanimous decision. So we discussed it for a while today (over three hours) to makes sure that all jurors came around to the same opinion. I found the discussion well reasoned. We did find him guilty of lying to a federal investigator - we started 8:4 in favor of lying but after a discussion the other four came around and were convinced. We actually found the defendant 'not guilty' on one of the counts (bribery charge) because we thought there was not enough evidence while we all thought he probably did it.
One of the jurors spoke for all of us when she said we should all be comfortable with the decision so we would sleep well at night. And I was certainly comfortable by the end of it.