Oh hey, a topic on which I have experience!
What a turnaround 
I actually served on a jury once. It was an interesting look at how real courtrooms work (as opposed to TV drama or Phoenix Wright) and it got me excused from serving again for...two years, I think?
I served on jury! Literally the Monday I got back from college I got the letter. Bastards. I'll keep out the identifying details.
My strategy if I ever get called to jury duty is to wait for the initial interview where the prosecutor and the defense attorney can exclude potential jurors, and tell them both that I am very grateful for this opportunity, because I've always had a gift to look into a person's eyes and instantly know whether they are guilty or not.
If that doesn't work, tell them you can smell guilt from someone's armpit sweat, and ask if you will be allowed to sniffle the accused (while demonstatively sticking your nose under the prosecutor's arm).
I never got the chance. When called up for a Grand Jury (at least where I live), you
must serve if you are able, and if you can't serve currently you have the option (which is your only option: you can only decide between this and serving) to be deferred a few weeks to try again then; however if you defer you must serve at that time (unless you can demonstrate you aren't a citizen or can't speak english, I believe; they might just put you on a spanish-language trial for all I know, or provide you with an interpreter). Since they only need a simple majority, they don't care if they get crazies (at least I don't think; I don't know what would happen, but it probably isn't "let you go scott free"). When you "volunteer", they take names out of some lotto machine: they call up a bunch of people, and anyone who volunteered but didn't get called
does go off scott-free, and they can't call you for 4 years or something. As our jury guy pointed out, though, don't volunteer expecting to not get called, most do. Someone tried that, and they got assigned to my group and spent the entire 4-weeks very unhappy (and they have to repeat it because they didn't show up half the time). Pays well enough though, and your employer cannot fire you for serving (in fact, the city will match whatever money you would have made otherwise). The worst part is that the punishment for not serving is a fine, AND that you
still have to serve anyway, with "Must Serve" jury letter.
(Be warned, some details are very unpleasant. Do not read further if squeamish)It was a Grand Jury (so 23 people, 12 to indict). We got to watch a short video about the history of grand juries (did you know grand juries predate regular juries? Their job was to recommend to the king what cases to consider). Learned some of the differences between regular and grand juries: grand juries usually only hear Prosecutors, and have a much lower standard of evidence; basically whether a trial is worth the time. Guy in my group had already been on a Grand jury before; said it was mostly weed cases, and usually it was a pretty straightfoward case of listening to a cop, maybe sometimes a recording, and deciding was equally straightforward. We, however, got assigned to murder cases (note the plural), but mostly we focused on a single gang-violence case. It was, in the words of our vice-chairwoman, "90% boring, 10% disturbing". Again, 90% boring because oh my goooooooooood it's so boooooooooorrrrriiiiiiiiiing. Listen to a policeman tell me the entirety of his career just so he can say "I got a call on X date, was 15th person to show up, collected pieces of evidence 231A through 231P, filed it as evidence 12357Ah8HF83J". Then we get the policeman who received that evidence (and their life story), just so we can hear he sent it to a lab. Then the Lab technician's life story. etc. Occasionally it would be more interesting, but still bracketed by name, rank, serial number, years serving on the force and where, speciality, etc.
Some interesting, and, well, disturbing bits though. Interviewed a Facebook executive. Interviewed the City Medical examiner. Interviewed an undercover cop. Interviewed an eight-year-old girl. Saw the facebook messages, including a former member of the gang pleading with a friend of his still in the gang to stop the violence. Saw the city's cameras from the other side, saw what the city does to catch gangs. Listened to some sort of gang expert tell me the history of the gangs in the area, as well as their relationships. Saw the huge boards they show us with all of the gangmembers (that they know of, surprisingly a few of them are still unknown to the city. Interviewed no fewer than five (six?) people who were either shot, or were present when one of their loved one was shot (or both). Listened to them describe their injuries and longer-lasting issues. Heard the eyewitnesses accounts. Listened to a woman watch her boyfriend die in her arms (tearing up as she did so) and a 16-year old holding his brother as he lay dying (and after the 16-year-old had, himself, been shot). Heard an in-depth (and I mean Dwarf Fortress level in-depth) description of a person's injuries, and exactly how they died (bullet through the nostril, shattering the skull, tearing through the left hemisphere before lodging between the skull and scalp; this is in addition to the bruising and other injuries on the rest of the body). Talked to the City medical examiner: soot was found in the nostril. Apparently, when a bullet is fired, it ejects both partially and totally incinerated gunpowder. Partially incinerated gunpowder is can travel between a few feet and a few inches, while totally incinerated gunpowder can travel only a few inches. Leading to this exchange: Examiner: "The gun was fired in close proximity to the victim." Prosecutor: "How close?" Examiner: "Based on the presence of soot in the nasal cavity, I would estimate around a few inches away from their face." Watched several people die on camera, including; well, I shouldn't say. And more I can't say.
Ended up indicting a lot of people, mostly for assault, weapons possession, and conspiracy (including first-degree conspiracy, which is life), but also, obviously, murder. One person was already serving time in prison for murder and assault. Average age of the accused was around 17 (I'd say about a third were over the age of 18, a few as young as 15, MAYBE 14). It was only a grand jury, so all those people went off to face a regular jury afterwards, and I don't know what happened to them. Got paid at least, as well as being taken off of the jury registers for eight-ten years or so.
Short version: It was an "experience". Definitely one appropriate for terrified thread, though.
Author
Topic: Things that made you absolutely terrified today (Read 2020059 times)