random bits

[cellio]

Guess-the-anonymous-poster update: One outstanding guess (paging aliza250), one where I had to be told (eclectic_1), all others identified. That was fun.

The stereotype is that smart people (including anyone whose job title implies serious analytical skills) don't get picked for juries, but I'm beginning to wonder. I've been called three times and picked twice, and our engineering director is currently away from work because he's on a jury. Do they just sometimes miss in the screening, or are the lawyers not really screening for this sort of thing after all?

A Texas judge has ordered that a person convicted of animal cruetly must post pictures of the animals she starved in her jail cell. Good for the judge! This is similar to the local story some months back of the hit-and-run driver who is required to carry a photo of the person he killed in his wallet during his probation. Such orders do no harm (it's hardly "cruel and unusual") and serve to put a human (or animal, in the one case) face on the damage done by these people. More, please. (And remember, we're talking about people convicted of criminal charges; I am not advocating haunting those who accidentally cause harm and don't try to hide it with such sentences.)

Do spammers really think that people still open messages with the subject line "URGENT"? Or that most of us think we even might know a sender named Brittany? Ah well; it doesn't fool the filters.

At my most recent physical my doctor called for a routine test that kicks in for women at age 40. (Am I being sufficiently delicate?) No surprises there; the surprise came when I called to schedule and the person said "oh, and no caffeine for two days before". After I moved from incoherent blubbering to actual words, I explained that this posed a difficulty and she relented. It turned out to be advice, not medical necessity. Don't scare me like that!

Comments

[cellio]

Another factor: she offered a field of study, rather than just saying "PhD". I don't offer the field unless asked; I just say "BS" or even "bachelor's", and let them either draw their own conclusions or ask. I suspect this is even more important for advanced degrees.

But when I get summoned for jury duty I try to get seated (within the bounds of truth and law, of course); if that's not her goal, then it doesn't sound like she needs to change her current approach.

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

I'm of mixed views as to whether I want to be on a jury. I got 'called' in Buffalo and given a ghod-awful high juror number and a phone number to call to see if I was wanted that day for the next week. It never got near my number. I got called in Fredonia and was told to report on one day instead of for a week and a number to call the previous day to see if I was still needed. Being in town running errands nearby, I walked into court to check personally. I got shuffled directly to the judge himself who told me I was free to go. The accused plea-bargained. I could tolerate sitting in for one day.

On the other hand, the Baron that's on the violent felony says he is bored to tears. Every piece of evidence has to have a long 'chain of evidence' to show it hasn't been tampered with. The police officer testifies that he found the object while conducting a search of the scene, and then has to give his entire background including where he went to high school to show that he's capable of spotting something. Then the examiner who picked it up with tweezers and put it in an evidence bag has to testify that he did, and what college he went to, to show that he has the necessary expertise to pick something up with tweezers, then the fingerprint expert testifies that he dusted and gives his employment background so the jury knows that he's qualified to dust for fingerprints. He said you can sit there for an entire day just listening to how a couple of items from the crime scene finally wound up in the police lab.

[cellio]

Wow. That sounds tedious.

I sat on a jury (that actually went to trial) only once -- robbery and drug charges -- and the evidence part wasn't nearly that bad. The part I found tedious was that on average we only spent about four hours a day in the court room (because the lawyers and judge needed to do things without us sometimes), which meant that I spent about four hours a day cooped up in a tiny room with the rest of the jury. We weren't allowed to discuss the case (not that this stopped most of them), and we quickly learned that aside from being on this jury we didn't have a lot in common. (The thing that was worst for me is no longer a factor: smokers. I went home sick every day, even though I opened the lone window (in December!). Courts here are non-smoking now.)

In Pittsburgh you get called for one day, not for a week, so at the end of the day either you're on a jury or you're free to go.