Jury Duty - Post Script

Now that the trial by jury is over and I can freely indulge in some things I could not while serving on the jury, I want to sort of collect the odds and ends of my thoughts and speculations:

1. There's a good reason for the judge's admonition not to talk about the case or do our own research.  For example, I found that the Sacramento Superior Court keeps an online database of people scheduled for hearings, arraignments, and trials.  Although this database isn't particularly user friendly or complete, it has enough information to find out what the minimum charges and convictions have been for someone list there.  Our defendant for our trial was being charged simply with reckless driving by eluding a police officer.  There was both a felony and a misdemeanor charge.  Listening to the defense attorney you might think this was the defendant's first brush with the law.  But according to the database, in the last 12 years alone he has been convicted or plead guilty to two counts of Driving Under the Influence, one count of grand theft auto, one count of grand theft burglary, one count of wife beating, and one count of resisting arrest and interfering with a police officer.  He's just not a really nice guy.
2. I have to really admire people like the defense attorney.  Unlike the jury, he had to know all the history on this criminal and still defended him, sat next to him as if he really did like him, and never let on what a creep he was.  Even the rest of the actors in court (and they were all acting to some degree) were giving the defendant more respect than he has given society.
3. Just as in the jury room, people I talk with about the jury deliberations seem to fall into two groups - the law is black & white and the law is all shades of gray.  I guess that's pretty typical of how people see life though, isn't it?
4. Maybe we don't pay our police enough. Here, this lone CHP officer chases and stops a truck carrying two convicted felons.  By dropping his microphone he has lost contact with dispatch so he can't even expect that backup is on the way.   The driver has acted irrationally from the start of the chase and at the end jumps out of the truck shouting, "I don't want to go to jail!  I don't want to go to jail!"  With good reason to fear for his life, the cop calmly cuffs and arrests the driver.  He spends another two to three hours filling out paperwork because of all the traffic infractions, the chase, and impoundment of the truck.  And he still isn't finished.  Between preliminary hearings, depositions, trial, and other meetings with attorneys and supervisors he probably spent another 50 to 75 hours on this case.  And what thanks will he get?
5. The courts have gone a long ways toward respecting the time and service of  jurors since the first time I was called.  If there is still a problem with the system it is that some people get a summons every 18 months and others go for years.  That should be evened out.  Probably there should also be a way to give credit for those who serve more than 3 days on a jury and those who spend a month on a jury should be exempt for life unless they volunteer to be called up.