Category: Rambling Thoughts

I was in the “just in case we have to excuse too many people” group in a jury pool. For the most part, it was a big waste of time… sit for hours, doing nothing. (Ok, I had my iPad and worked on it. I used my phone’s Wi-Fi while I did email, then switched to an open Wi-Fi to answer questions on my websites.) Then we had to sit for hours more in the courtroom while the lawyers and judge decided who is fit to serve. Thankfully, I wasn’t needed.

Among the questions asked was who thought weed should be legal. About half of the 34 members of the pool raised their hands. She asked those in the main group why they thought it should be legal. One man said medical use as his wife is ill and he thinks it would help her more than the $1200/month prescriptions. Others mentioned taxation (tax it like alcohol) and economics (courts are not cost-free), one person mentioned hemp as a renewable resource. (I think all 10 who were dismissed raised their hands on this question. I’d control/tax weed like alcohol and tobacco.)

The prosecutor asked if the case was about possession, could we convict, since there are laws against pot possession and court is about enforcing the law. The people she asked said yes, they would uphold the law even if they didn’t agree with the law.

She didn’t ask me, as I was in the ‘just in case’ group, #32 (and they only needed 13). I would have said no, I could not convict. Marijuana might be against the law, but the law is wrong and the cops are wrong for enforcing it.

There were once laws banning interracial marriage too, but that doesn’t mean those laws were right or just either. Slavery, discrimination, voting rights… all were governed by bad laws in our history.

There are several websites that list old, stupid laws that have never been repealed, like riding a horse backwards on Sunday or some such nonsense. A cop would be laughed out of town if he tried to arrest someone for something so asinine. It should be the same with simple possession of weed.

A bad law is a bad law and no juror should be party to enforcing a bad law.

And for the record, if you are wondering if I’m a pot head… I have never smoked pot. When I was about 10 my sister and I tried one of dad’s Lucky Stripes. We each got one puff in and decided smoking was the most vile and disgusting thing.

… yet courts nationwide expect – no, demand – that jurors “work” for nothing, for a pittance that won’t begin to cover the cost of gasoline to drive to the courthouse. They demand people clear their calendar and be at their beck and call for weeks, letting potential jurors know after 3:30 each afternoon if they need to come in the next day.

As a small, self-employed businessperson, the court expects me to keep my schedule clear so I’m available and I’m not needed, to be able to schedule 8 hours of appointments for “tomorrow” after 4 PM “today”.

The attorneys arguing cases before the jury don’t run their business by waiting until 3:30 PM to set up appointments for the next day, yet that is exactly what they expect business people to do.

How can any businessperson work like this and expect to make enough money to live on? Short answer: They can’t.

I won’t be able to schedule appointments in advance and will have to rely on last minute appointments for income during the month of August. I have a couple of clients who will love that, but most of my clients like to plan ahead and set aside time a few days in advance. Unfortunately, the last minute clients won’t begin to make up for income lost because I can’t schedule appointments in advance.

As a result, being on a jury will cost me in excess of $3000 in lost gross income (while increasing my expenses). And that is assuming I’m not banned from using the Internet if I’m made to serve on a jury in a case that lasts longer than a few hours. It’s kind of hard to run an Internet-based consulting business if you can’t use the Internet, and the loss of Internet access would cost me several hundred more.

While many employers pay their employees regular wages when called to jury duty, self-employed small business people have no one to pay them for lost wages.

No work equals no pay.

Some employers make the employee use vacation and sick days, but again, the self-employed don’t have this luxury.

No work equals no pay.

Bank of America expects my mortgage payment on time and in full, they don’t care that my income can be close to 0 for the entire month because I need to be always available for jury duty. They want paid and if they aren’t, they won’t hesitate to foreclose.

Heck, even the county that is calling me to serve on the jury expects me to pay my property taxes, on time and in full (at the rate of $12 a day, more than pittance given to jurors). They won’t care that I have no money because of involuntary, forced servitude to the court system.

Society gets the justice system they are willing to pay for, and unfortunately, no one is willing to pay for true juries of their peers and I can’t afford to carry the cost of serving on my own.