Venire panel morning

This morning I was summonsed in for jury duty, and it was entertaining to see the process from the other side of the bar. Originally I was the venire person with the yellow number 9 badge; when that panel turned out to be for my own office mate's trial, I was traded to the civil jury pool and given a new blue badge to wear, number 31.

Participating in voir dire, I didn't say anything to taint the panel, but I did notice myself forming an opinion about the case before hearing any evidence, just like I've asked potential jurors not to do a hundred times or more. Luckily, the parties had their jury picked by the time they reached juror number 19. Likeable enough parties for the two hours we spent together, but it gave me a chill to discover a side of me that's ready to side with an insurance company.

Outside the courtroom, a juror badge seems to confer the power of invisibility on its wearer. I was standing at the end of the line outside the civil courtroom, when a police officer and a prosecutor stepped out of a criminal courtroom, close enough for me to hear the DPA tell the cop, "Now, his lawyer's crying about why you made him do the FST's, so what I would say is..."