The past two days I have been occupying my time in a jury waiting room at the downtown Portland Courthouse. The prospective jurors were all dismissed early on Wednesday but yesterday they started calling names.
I was part of that group so we went to a courtroom and learned that we would be jurors at a criminal trial. The defendant was accused of ID fraud so I was certain that I would be dismissed but - no - I was one of the "chosen". The trial was short, taking only the afternoon to hear witnesses so we agreed on a verdict of "guilty" and we were outside by 5:30.
When I first received the letter calling me to duty I could have recused myself because I'm older than 70 but I truly was curious to compare the justice system here in Oregon to the one in California. All in all, it was a good experience.
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