Thursday, March 03, 2005

Tales from the Courtroom...Minus Everything Pertinent to the Case because We're not allowed to talk about that

Not even to our significant others. Maybe I can't talk about the case we're judging (until it's all over), but I sure can talk about other stuff that's going on at the Courthouse. This is a case that I was absolutely, positively, 100% sure I'd be excused from. Of course I can't tell you why, but I will in a couple of weeks. Uh huh...that's right. This trial is going to last at least two weeks (we've been warned) and all I can say is that this is the closest I've felt to being in high school and totally and completely bored in class, since, well...since I was a completely and totally bored high school student. Yawning, fidgeting, straightening my legs to uncrink my knees and trying to look interested...lots of moves that I hadn't used in, um, about 40 years. FORTY YEARS??? That sounds nuts...just nuts.

Anyway, I'm not bored by the case itself. I'm bored with the amount of detail. We, the humble jury, are the judges of this case and the referee (the real judge) and the lawyers think that we need minutae. We don't need this amount of detail because we're not experts and even if we hear this stuff for two weeks, we still won't understand...truly understand the science of the case. We won't have our MDs at the end. We will still be waiters and publicists and writers and lawyers and retired old ladies and architects and media chicks and we still will be imperfect judges, but I think we'll all genuinely try hard to be even and fair...even that girl who did nothing but let out great frustrated sighs every time she wasn't rejected during the voir dire.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've been "in the court room" on the other side, as an expert witness testifying for one or the other. The jury appear to me as a painting, a picture on the wall... No disrespect at all, they are just silently soaking up what I am saying, or at least I'd like to think that. My only deference is that I try to use words and terms that are as simple as possible; such as "as loud as a trucks passing by" after saying "80 decibels on the A-scale"... etc.

6:05 AM  

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