In the past, when I received a jury summons I would usually check online the night before and find that I need not appear... not the case last week. I showed up to the courthouse, waited around for a while, and shortly found myself in a courtroom listening to Voi dire. I watched as about 7 of the 18 potential jurors in the box were dismissed... leaving one vacant seat... and to my surprise I was the next name on the list... so to the box I go.... apparently to stay for the next several days.

I had worked in a law office for about six years, and for many years wanted to pursue a career as an attorney, and so, at first it was extremely interesting to see the process from this point of view. For the next couple of days I heard testimony and found it to be quite entertaining. The entertainment subsided, however, when it came time to deliberate and reach a verdict. After, what was technically about a day of deliberation (it was a day and a half, but we lost a juror after the first half-day, and so an alternate had to step in and we had to start from scratch) we reached a verdict.

All-in-all, it was a very interesting experience, and although it may be annoying and inconvenient to go through the jury summons process, I now understand how important it is in our criminal justice system and see that it is necessary in order to ensure a fair trial for all parties concerned.