Out of the pool - Voir dire

Unlike a couple of jury summons' I have served where it seemed like I wasn't even going to be called on a panel for questioning, I was called on the first panel called the morning I registered.  I can't give a lot of detail at this point as the trial is still underway and the judge was quite specific about things we could and couldn't talk about.  Even numbers might tell more than we should.

My panel, the one called to Department 12 that morning, was called out of the pool in alphabetic order.  But by the time we reached the Department 12 courtroom, the list had been once again randomized so that it wasn't just the A's and B's that got to sit in the jury box.

I was interested in whether my handicap would make a difference in the courtroom.  It did.  Although my selection number was such that I was part of the jury, I had to sit in my power chair some distance from the jury, closer to the attorneys than to the jury box.  That made me a sort of "invisible man" in the court.  Both attorneys tended to focus just on the jury box.  Even the presence there of an obviously empty chair did not seem to remind them I was there.  During the jury challenges when each side can dismiss jurors for cause or otherwise.  I noticed one of the attorney's clients pointing out that the attorney had not asked me a single question.The attorney jumped  up and asked the judge if he could reopen the questioning because he had missed me.  He then apologized to me and expressed hope that I wasn't offended.  Hoping I wouldn't get in trouble, I replied in my best stage voice, "Yes.  As a matter of fact I feel very offended -- NOT"  There were chuckles all around the room so I guess I'm not in troublel