What I learned this week

Did you know that if you spit in a patrol car in Oregon you can be charged with third degree vandalism?

I was called in for jury duty and I learned that there. The defendant was being charged with DUII and vandalism.

14 of the potential jurors were considered for a jury of 6. 2 were dismissed during the questioning stage - one after a private session with the attorneys & the judge and one after he disclosed that he had been hit by a drunk driver a few years ago and had some permanent damage.

The defense attorney asked everyone what magazines they read - he stopped me after 5. Overall we were a pretty educated bunch - the pool included 3 engineers from HP, 2 college professors, a graduate student, and a retired bookkeeper - that makes sense since Corvallis is a college town. He also had this strange technique - he asked each of us "Do you believe that you will be able to find this defendent not guilty if the state doesn't prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt?" and he put his hand on the defendant's shoulder every time he got to "this defendant". Since he did this 14 times, it was a little surreal by the time he got to the 14th juror.

After the attorneys finished questioning us (this took almost 2 hours), we were excused from the courtroom while they picked the jury of 6 from the 12 of us who were left in the pool. Since I wasn't picked, that was the end of my civic duty for the day.