If you listen to “John Boy and Billy” on local radio in the morning, you can understand when I say I was ready to go a little “Mad Max” while serving on jury duty last week at the federal courthouse in Opelika. They should have convicted the jury, the attorneys for both sides and the judge for murder because we definitely killed two days.
For two days, I, along with 12 other people not smart enough to get out of jury duty, were pounded with numbers in a case that was entitled “The United States versus ---.” (Columnist’s Note: I seriously doubt the entire United States of America knew anything about this case or even cared for that matter when there are real criminal cases waiting to be tried.) It got to the point where the attorneys for the United States of America were as boring as my third-grade math teacher teaching us to memorize the times table. But, I can now tell you the formula used by the Lanett Housing Authority to determine the amount of rent charged to people who qualify for public housing. Let me say here that algebra formulas are much simpler to work.
The lawyers representing the United States of America pounded us - the jury - over and over and over and over again with the numbers. We must have listened to the same formula 20 times when the first witness for the prosecution gave testimony. Then we heard the numbers again when the next witness took the stand.
After two witnesses – and half a day wasted with testimony that could have been completed in 10 minutes or less – we took a lunch break. The lunch break was quite entertaining. I joined five other jurors at a deep-fried food establishment near the courthouse. We ordered deep-fried chicken in various forms and with various sauces. That is not what made the hour-long break entertaining. The entertainment came when the lady next to me cried out, “Oh, Lord, look at that.” I looked. I saw. I laughed.
“That” was a mouse sitting in one of the booths watching the customers – hoping for a dropped crumb or two. The lady next to me said it was a rat. To hear her describe it, it was at least six-feet tall with three-feet long fangs. It was much smaller than that – the mouse’s body was maybe five or six inches long and its tail another five or six inches. It had beautiful, healthy looking fur.
We, the jurors present, notified the people in the adjoining booth of the creature. You would have thought we had yelled “shark” or even “fire.” The two people left the booth in a hurry. They demanded their money back and left. I, and those people with me, just laughed. The mouse wasn’t really bothering anyone. Some people just have a problem with rodents. I don’t. I own a guinea pig and four gerbils. The mouse was smaller than any of the rodents I own.
Maybe I should have been more concerned about the fact that a rodent was in the restaurant and the fact that it was healthy. It must have been eating well somewhere – presumably this restaurant in particular. But, I wasn’t. The restaurant was near the courthouse, which meant I had more time to relax before going back to the jury box for the afternoon session. And, rodents do not bother me – roaches do. I saw no roaches.
The second half of the day, back in the box, was more of the same. More numbers were pounded into our brains. Okay, I got it. Someone was abusing the system. I got it after the first set of numbers. It wasn’t enough for the attorneys to show us the numbers on the electronic screens around the courtroom; they had to also write them down on a gigantic paper pad on an easel for us to see. They – the attorneys – seemed to enjoy doing this. It was like they had just figured out how to work the formula and wanted to show us how smart they were. They weren’t that smart.
If they had been smart, they would have stopped after showing us the formula worked the first time. Then, I would not have thought that the biggest rats I saw for two days were in the courtroom representing me instead of in the restaurant. And I would not have felt as if the United States of America had wasted two days of the lives of 13 of its citizens.
If I am ever selected again for jury duty, “Find a more significant case to be tried, don’t presume I am a complete idiot when it comes to math and quit trying to ruin my life. Have a nice day.”
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