Jury Duty

A few days ago I wrote about Jury Duty and my experience. Let me elaborate. I have served on two juries, both times drugs were involved and both times we found the defendants guilty.

On the second case, we were sequestered while we were deliberating. At first I didn't think it was too bad to be sequestered, but then reality set in. We were bused to a hotel. When we exited the bus we were told to line-up. I thought we were back in school.

We walked in a line into and through the lobby where we were given our room keys and told to go straight to our rooms for a little while and then meet outside the room to go to dinner. Again, we lined up with a guard at the front of the line and another guard at the rear. We walked into the restaurant under guard.

After dinner we were then again escorted to our rooms. Once we were settled in our rooms, our guards collected our keys so we couldn't leave. The guard then sat in the hall all night. The next day the routine was the same.

I found the experience degrading. I felt we were being treated as if we were the criminals. Fortunately we finished our deliberations later that day. I certainly didn't want to go through that again.

There has to be a better way to insure that members of the jury don't discuss the case after hours. This experience has made me reluctant to serve on a jury where I might have to be sequestered. I don't like being locked up while the defendant is free.