I had jury duty this morning. Had to sit in a large room full of strangers and uncomfortable chairs for nearly four hours. Been reading Augustus by this historian guy who also wrote a book on Cicero named Anthony Everitt. It's good stuff, really rich writing style. I live 4 blocks from the courthouse to which I was assigned, had breakfast in a Greek diner down the street from my apartment.
There were three rounds of calling out three or four digit numbers to have people go submit to lawyerly perusal. Anonymous. Clean. UTTERLY FUCKING BORING OMG.
The way to spice up the jury duty system is to make it more involved and assign value to opinions! Each potential juror should be given a test before ever setting foot in the courtroom. The test should include questions regarding American justice, history, and the like, but shouldn't be limited to it. I think it'd be pretty cool to walk into court as a defendant and actually be judged by a jury of my peers. Looking around the room, I saw a collection of random people who didn't want to be there. That's where our similarities ended, I suppose. Maybe the test at the beginning should relate specifically to the knowledge and focus of the defendant. Yeah. Kick ass.
Bottom line, I guess maybe jury duty should feel less like a duty, and more like a fun game we can all play. It's only freedom, right? Sheesh.
Then I came home and read some writeups about how E2 is unfriendly to clampe's students.
Love,
wordnerd