We the jury

Yesterday, I was one of the lucky six picked from 25 citizens to serve as a juror for a day-long misdemeanor trial.

When I first arrived at the courthouse, I entered a room full of about 200 people impatiently waiting with a jury summons in hand. After about an hour, an employee came around to weed out those with an acceptable excuse, such as college students, and even a person who wasn’t a U.S. citizen.

One 20-something guy tried to be eliminated because he “didn’t believe in judging people,” but the courthouse employee didn’t buy it. Something tells me she’s heard more impressive excuses than this one.

When this first round was complete, bailiffs entered the room to divide us into different 25-person groups for each case. Like good kindergarteners, we formed single-file lines and were led to the restrooms for a quick break before entering the appropriate courtroom. Two state of Texas lawyers and one defense lawyer lined us up in assigned seats and asked us questions such as “would you be able to uphold this law?” and “have you or anyone you know been affected by someone driving while intoxicated?”

A DWI case. Oh goodie.

As one of the six picked, I spent the afternoon listening to how the defendant drank (supposedly two, then changed his story to four) beers while watching a college football game at Hooters, then got in his car and ended up hitting a car in a (thankfully) minor accident shortly after leaving the restaurant.

This may make me a tad juvenile, but I couldn’t help secretly giggling every time the state lawyers repeatedly said Hooters in a serious trial.

The defendant was biting his nails the whole time, clearly worried about the outcome. This probably had something to do with his alcohol level being recorded as 40 percent more than the legally intoxicated rate of .08 – and this was read by the “Intoxilyzer 5000” at the police station an hour after the accident.

What makes me laugh more than anything is the defense lawyer tried to make us believe that the “molecules” from the vehicle's airbag, which were in the defendant's system, could somehow affect his Intoxilyzer test. I know some people are gullible, but come on!

When we talked to the judge after we gave our guilty conviction, he told us that this was the defendant’s second DWI, and he’d now face jail time.

I think we made the right decision.