Entry for September 20, 2006 JURY DUTY !!!!!!!!

Finally after all these years I'm called for JURY DUTY!! I'm really looking forward to this new experince to see our court system in action.  We were given dates that trials are on the docket. We are instructed to call the court clerk office after 4:30 the day before to see if the trial  is still on. On about the sixth trial date we are finally called to duty. I arrive at the court house at the given time and sign in, I'm number 22, hey thats  my lucky number. After signing in we are led into the courtroom and given our instructions. Its 30 more minutes before the opening of the trial. Man that sure was a long, long 30 minutes. 30 people showed up out of 40 called.  9:00 right on the dot and we are instructed, ALL RISE. The judge gives out his speech and ask three questions that all answer together. He swears us all in.  A woman offical of the court begins drawing numbers out of a box with each juror number, the juror is called and seated  in one of the 12 chairs. Number 22 , hey thats me. After a while 20 jurors are seated and the lawyer began dismissing some to get down to 12. The judge tells us when you are dismissed it isn't for any special reason. Once the field is down to 12  the jury is in place, I'm on the JURY!!The case involved a drug dealer selling three rocks to an undercover woman. The DA presented three tapes with the buys from the dealer to the undercover agent. The tapes were of a very poor quality but you could understand some of the words. The DA must have got his law degree for Wal-Mart, he wasn't very good at getting the undercover witness to explain what went down. The lawyer for the accused was just out of LAW  SCHOOL  and went to a real law school . He twisted the witness story around and I felt sorry for this poor girl. She finally settled down and got the story right. The evidence was strongly against the man accused. No question in my mind on his being guilty. At 12:oo we broke for lunch and were instructed not to talk about the case. Back from lunch, the judge tells the jury that a devlopment in the case doesn't require the jury any more. WHATS the deal I'm thinking but the jury is not told why we are dismissed. After all that time and effort on our part you would think the court system owed us an explaination??? NOT!!!!!  I found out later that the charges against the dealer was dropped. I'm still trying to find out WHY???  This is an example of our legal system in action. I don't think the DA ever wins a case, he just gives them away. So much for JUSTICE!!!