Just when I was thinking I did not have much left to write, I get loaded up. First, my cousin Trisha started a new blog and she is off to a STELLAR start. She recently received her Masters Degree in Elementary Education and is substitute teaching for awhile in some VERY interesting places while she looks for a full time position. One place where she has applied is a place called Fields, Oregon, population 22 with a 2 hour drive to the closest grocery store. The crazy part about it is that Google Maps has a street view of their “downtown” and there is a “downtown” bypass. I will have more to say on all this later.
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On a second note, I had jury duty yesterday. It was interesting to say the least. There are too many stories to tell them all here. I was in the jury pool for an armed robbery. They called up at least 50 potential jurors and, by the time I left, they had gone through at least 25 of us without finding a pool of 12 they liked. I think the assistant district attorney liked me, but I was asked if I knew anyone who had gone through an armed robbery or theft or anything like that recently. Well, Lorena’s home town is struggling with all the drug cartel violence in North Mexico, so I told them about our close friends (Benjamin and Rita) who have been through two armed robberies, one of which included a pistol whipping. Then I told him about the home invasion at my in-laws house that happened last week and the hand-grenades that were exploded at the U.S. Embassy in Monterrey in November when my Lorena and the kids were only two blocks away.
I forgot to tell them about our friends, Daniel and Lila, whose daughter’s drug trafficking murderer was on the street again only one day after committing the murder. I also forgot to tell them about the shoot-out in our friend Iraklio’s neighborhood that took the lives of 11 drug cartel members and two kidnap victims. The defense attorney asked me if I had negative feelings about gangs and if I could separate my feelings about gangs from my judgment about the people on trial. I asked him if he thought that drug cartels counted as gangs.
He said, “Yes, I think they probably count as gangs.”
I said, “Yes, I believe I could judge them fairly based on the evidence presented.”
I told him I thought I could judge them based on the evidence, but he threw me off the jury anyway.
I actually enjoyed myself, met some nice people, and had my confidence restored, if not in particularly in lawyers, at least in the legal system. While it is not necessarily a pretty sight, you can see why it is a good system relative to whatever else is out there.