Jury Duty

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I realize that I am probably one of the few people who actually was looking forward to be summoned for jury duty... and enjoyed the experience when it happened.

I was originally summoned last May/June [2012], but I had to defer it for one reason or another [schedule conflict]. Anyways, they were nice enough to give me a list with several different weeks as choices that were for many months later.

Ample time to plan around it, wouldn't you think? Of course, several things creeped up last minute this week... but it did end up working out okay, considering I only had to physically go in on Monday so far this week.

Monday morning, I had to get to the courthouse at 8:30 AM. Let me tell you there is nothing worse than having to wake up early. This might sound silly considering I'm an early riser (usually up for the day around 6-7 AM at the latest for the most part).  But it's just something different when you know you have to do something, you know what I mean? Plus, just because I wake up early regularly that doesn't mean I like to function that early. In fact, I usually don't get out of bed right away. It must be a psychological thing, I suppose.

It was an internal battle of wanting to be on a jury panel vs. not wanting to because of the things I mentioned above that creeped up. I'd say I got a compromised version of the experience. I didn't have to sit in the jury assembly room all day just waiting [as is the experience of many people I'm told]. Instead, after sitting through the orientation portion of it and a quick 20 minute [useless] break, pretty early in the day, near 10 AM, our whole jury group was summoned into the courtroom for the selection of a jury panel for a civil case (instead of just a select group of people).

We were given a little background info on the case on hand by the judge, introduced to the lawyers and parties involved, and then the jury selection began. It was a civil case, so there needed to be 8 members selected. The process to get those 8 members took a little over 2 hours!

The process seems long and tedious, but it says so much about the bigger picture. It's amazing how far our court of law goes to make sure the jury is unbiased, diverse, and so much more.

At the end of the day, it was so nice to see the system working and be involved in the process. We are truly blessed to live in a society, in this instance, where we are judged by a diverse group of our peers. We take so much for granted on a daily basis and it was nice to reflect on that during the time frame.

I'm on call for the rest of the week, but at this point, I doubt I'll be called in again.

Everything Happens for a Reason

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Everything happens for a reason. I've always been a big believer in those words.

I remember even back in high school having a stubborn debate with a good friend of mine over fate and free will where neither of us were willing to budge from our respective points of views.

Personally, if this last year isn't a validation for me that everything really does happen for a reason, then I don't know what it would take.

I just didn't realize that I was already on this train of thought over two years ago when things just weren't falling into place like they should have.

The amount of times I'm asked why I didn't end up going to law school like I had planned for so long or "do I still want to" is ridiculous. At first, it annoyed me. Now, it saddens me.

Because it has been a dream of mine for oh so long.

Or as if like a light switch, I decided one night that it wasn't an aspiration of mine anymore. If things went my way, of course I'd like to be studying law now and be a lawyer in the near future.

Life just doesn't work that way though.

Yes, I have wallowed about it many times over. Who wouldn't over an ambition they worked towards for so long?

It wasn't until a couple of months ago though, while thinking over this past year, that it clicked for me.

I was assured that yes, things really do happen for a reason.

That law school didn't work out at this given time for a reason. That He knows and plans all.

This past year has been a challenge in ways more than I can explain. But it has reassured me that if I had started law school when I had planned/wanted, it wouldn't have been possible for me to continue.

And while I can't even fathom the fact, I'm sure that it would have been even more devastating to discontinue midway.

But He knew better. I just didn't.

Is it still a dream of mine? Yes. Is it meant to happen? Only time will tell.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

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Beyond a reasonable doubt. What does that mean to you?

Unless you live under a cave somewhere (and if that was the case, you wouldn't be reading this either), you had to have been at least aware of Casey Anthony and the case against her. If you read and watch the news (multiple times) daily like me, then you know a tad bit more.

A combination of two factors, in my opinion, of how a case works in our system played a huge role in the verdict:

1. The burden of proof lies on the prosecution side; the defendant is innocent until they are proven guilty.
2. A twelve-member jury of our peers holds the fate of the defendant.

Considering this was a death penalty case, I'm sure the jury felt added pressure. One of the only jurors to speak out so far said "I did not say she was innocent... I just said there was not enough evidence. If you cannot prove what the crime was, you cannot determine what the punishment should be."


In another article, the same juror is quoted as saying:

"The prosecution had to prove it. Why is it my fault if they didn't prove their case? If you give me the evidence, I'm happy to return a verdict accordingly."Ford said the fact that Anthony could have faced the death penalty was a consideration."If they want to charge and they want me to take someone's life, they have to prove it. They have to prove it, or else I'm a murderer too."

But at the same time, I don't think the jurors should be considering the punishment part of the deliberation at this point because at this phase they should only be considering whether they think the defendant is guilty or innocent.

I'm against the death penalty as well, but to acquit someone because of that is unfair and UNJUST. These jurors realized that the alternate could have been life in prison, right? That's one of the drawbacks of a jury of peers -- you don't know if they know how it all works.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if it was reversed; if the defense had to prove their innocence!

The aspect that did it for me was the fact that if she was innocent, why would she not report her daughter missing for 31 days? Who does that?

What do you think of the verdict? Do you think she's innocent? Do you think it was an accident gone awry? Or do you think Casey Anthony just got away with murder?

P.S. Don't forget to leave me a comment below on your thoughts! As always, I'd love to hear from you.

Politics and Possibilities, Part Two

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This is a continuation of this.

A combination of loud neighbors, sirens going off all night outside, and just being in a new place equaled a sleepless night on Monday. As much as I love the city life, I definitely don't see myself living in one.

On the agenda for the second day: the Department of Justice/Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Rutgers Federal Relations and the Haitian embassy.

Thankfully, there were no cancellations that day (at least that we were made aware of) and things ran a lot more smoothly. Without a doubt, the faculty member we traveled with and her supervisor had realized how annoyed we were at how the previous day had gone by (especially considering the fact that they have done this for so many years).

One of the things the man we spoke to at the department of justice talked to us about was how he has four brothers and all are either in prison currently or in the process of going back to prison and ironically this man works for the department of justice/federal bureau of prisons. This came up as we discussing peoples' backgrounds and where they grew up and how your upbringing effects what you do in life. His point basically was that even with adversity, it is what you do that effects what you become in your life.

At the Rutgers Federal Relations office, we spoke to two Rutgers alumni's. We talked about the budget cuts that would be effecting education and its impact on schools everywhere, especially Rutgers. I've talked over and over again about how I feel about education, and it is so sad that tuition fees keep going up, yet resources and classes that are offered (amongst many other things) keep getting cut.

Our final stop was the Haitian embassy. As we were walking there we passed the embassies of so many different countries, so that was pretty neat (especially trying to figure out what country some of the flags represented).

Anyone with half a heart has to be beyond devastated in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Haiti in January. Such a large natural disaster can create havoc anywhere, and for it to effect the poorest nation - one can only imagine!

Of course, the number one question on everyones' mind was 'what can we do for help?'. The man used the example of bottled water. One of the things that people continue to donate is bottled water - because if you think about it, their rational thinking is probably that water is a necessity and Haitians need it. Well, they are partly correct - they do need water, but instead of exporting water there... what they need is money to build things up once again so they can provide things for themselves.

He also told us a chilling story that gave me goosebumps. A friend of his (person A) works in an embassy (I think - I might be misremembering the place, but that's not really important) in Haiti and it was a frantic and busy day at work. While he was doing his work, a friend of his (person B) called him and said he really needed help down at his office and if he (person A) could please come down right away. Person A told Person B that he was really busy and that he would come down later, but person B kept insisting and said 'you would be a lifesaver' if you came down and helped. Person A finally annoyingly agreed and as he was on his way to person B, the earthquake struck. The outcome was that Person A's office was completely destroyed and everyone died... but person A survived because of person B!

Person A told the guy we spoke to how guilty he felt and also how person B had said 'you would be a lifesaver', yet person B had saved person A's life. It's amazing, yet so sad. The situation was completely out of his control, yet you can't help but realize how torn the man must feel. Thankful and fortunate that he survived, yet feeling horrible that all of his colleagues died.

After visiting the Haitian embassy, we headed back to our hotel to get to our van and head back home (not before the faculty member and her supervisor wasted another half hour though).

It was pretty weird that we went to Washington D.C. and didn't even see the White House or the monuments and memorials, considering that pretty much defines D.C.

You would think driving a four and a half hour drive (one way) and spending two days with four other students (I did know one of them from last semester) and two faculty members you have never met before would be awkward, but luckily the other four students were easy to get along with and even in the car ride - we all were talking from everything from movies to political events (we were all political science students after all!). I think who you are with makes all the difference, so it was definitely a good thing.

All in all, we got to speak to several people who gave us great advice and were quite informative, so at the end of the day - I'm glad I went.



P.S. Don't forget to leave me a comment below on your thoughts! As always, I'd love to hear from you.

Politics and Possibilities, Part One

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Tuesday night, I got back from a two day trip to Washington D.C. with four other students from Rutgers through a program called 'Politics and Possibilities'.

We were to meet bright and early at 6:50 A.M. on campus on Monday - what a great way to start off the week of spring break :(. Anyhow, the Rutgers faculty member we were going with was late getting there and one thing or another delayed us from leaving for almost forty minutes.

The fact that the first stop was scheduled to be the Supreme Court (the one place on the itinerary I was actually looking forward to) and were on a tight schedule had me nervous the whole ride there. As if the fact that we were running late already wasn't bad enough, we stopped at a service area and the faculty member and her supervisor turned the ten minute stop into a 30+ minute stop (while the five students made it back in the allotted time).

Oh, and then the time on the rented van was behind an hour and twenty minutes (an hour of which we could blame on the fact that day light savings time began Sunday and I guess no one bothered to change it) so the lady thought we were doing okay on time for some reason even though a) we kept telling her the real time and the fact that we were late b) we left late to begin with, and were late from leaving the service area...

See a pattern developing here? Lateness.

It pretty much defined Monday for us.
Usually it's the students who are blamed for being late... but not this trip.

By the time we finally got to the Supreme Court, we had missed our scheduled tour time. While we still spent a few minutes walking around downstairs, all five of us students were very disappointed we missed the tour. Our attempts to convince the faculty member to let us take the next tour which was to begin in about twenty minutes failed. She kept insisting that we would be late to the next thing on the agenda and whatnot.

We head over to the next to the National Bar Association to meet someone else (a Rutgers alumni actually), but they were having furniture delivered or something and it was decided that he would meet us at the Convention Center. Little did we know we would have to wait over two hours for this guy!!!

I don't know what part annoys me the most - the fact that we missed the next tour at the Supreme Court to hurry over to make our appointment with this guy, the fact that we had to wait for so long, or the fact that this trip seemed to be the most disorganized program ever. To think this lady has done this for the last fifteen years - I just don't get how.

The guy treated us to late lunch/early dinner at a Spanish restaurant called La Tasca, which was an experience in itself. My food smelled horrible (and tasted even worse), one of the orders was duplicated, and one guy was told that the chef thought his food smelled funny and wanted him to place an order for something else (that definitely did not help anyone else's appetite). I've never had Spanish food before, so I don't know if its not keen to my taste buds or if this place just sucked. Thank goodness for fast food near our hotel!

This is continued here.



P.S. Don't forget to leave me a comment below on your thoughts! As always, I'd love to hear from you.