Stunning Sunrise to Start the Day

Hello my friends.  I just wanted to share with you a little bit about my week.  I was called to jury duty and I had to appear on Monday.  The courthouse is about a 25 mile drive from my home and luckily all information regarding parking, etc., was given to me ahead of time.  If you ask my children, I LOVE government offices; maybe because they are run by a strict set of rules and regulations!

The jurors sign in and wait in a huge room.  There is an orientation and then the juror's names are called as needed for each specific court case.  My  name was called for the second case. There was a total of 65 jurors from which 12 were chosen to serve on the jury.

 

I found the process fascinating!  I had been called twice before for jury duty but never served on a jury.  Once for a small county court and once for Federal court.  But this was the county superior court.  After we were seated in the courtroom, the judge gave us some instructions and then the first group of names (18 names) and those people took their seats in the jury.  They each had to answer a set of questions that were provided. The case involved two subjects; police and drunk driving.  Right from the start, a juror was excused due to her answer to the set of questions.  This question and answer period lasted until the afternoon.  New prospective jurors were added if one of the original 18 juror was excused.  Finally, by 3:45, 12 jurors and two alternates had been chosen.

The exciting part for me was to see the district attorney on one side along with the defense attorney and the defendant on the other side.  It brought to memory watching Dragnet or Perry Mason.  (I believe the modern equivalent would be CSI).  My father was a policeman so maybe that is why I respect and regard law enforcement.

There was an interesting story given by one of the judges during the jury orientation.  She was Russian ethnicity and her mother and grandmother had immigrated to the United States via Ellis Island.  My grandmother immigrated to the US via Ellis Island. This judge went onto say how fortunate and blessed we are to live in this county and exercise our right serve on a jury and to a trial by jury.  She listed how we are a unique nation in that (1) the elected leader of our nation would never change the laws so that he could rule forever, (2) the army would never have a coup against our government and (3) We are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Although I was not chosen to serve on the jury, I received a first hand look at how our country works. And it made me come home with a good feeling.  There's been lots of not so nice things said regarding our past election.  In blogland, I sometimes feel that others have judged or boycotted someone's blog because they don't think the same.  But, we need to remember that we have a right to vote, something that many countries don't have.  We don't live in a dictatorship.  We need to embrace our differences and reach out to our neighbor even though they may think different than us. Lets share and celebrate the things we do have in common!

Oops, I almost forgot - the photos above are of the sunrise this morning.  I was up at 5:00AM thanks to my adorable little grandson who spent the night.  The colors are amazing!  And, better yet, my day is amazing!

Thank you for visiting and I hope that your week is going well wherever you are!

With my best wishes,

Pat