I go into the courtroom for jury duty. We're chosen randomly from DMV & voter registration records, and then the courthouse staff shuffles the little cards we filled out to make the process more random. But we also filled out questionnaires the lawyers reviewed before we went to the courtroom. It had questions like, "Were you ever a victim of a violent crime?" or, "Did you testify in court as a witness?" I answered Yes to these questions because I was a key witness in a crime. And then the person who was convicted of Assault II threatened me for 4 years.
So we go into the courtroom and the judge tells us what the charges were. Assault, assault causing grevious bodily harm, harrassment......the defendant's wife was pressing charges. The judge asked if anyone on the jury feels that he or she cannot be a fair or impartial witness in this case. This just brought back too many ugly memories for me as I'm in a courthouse in the county where I had restraining orders, and the court (with my permission) wire-tapped my phone for a year because the crazy guy who bothered me for 4 years would disable me phone from outside of my apartment. I couldn't get a dial tone, so I couldn't call 911.....I knocked on my neighbor's apartment wall and she would dial 911 for me. When the judge asked that question I raised my hand, and then she asked me why I couldn't be a fair witness. She understood my situation and politely excused me from the court and asked me to turn in my Juror pin. The coincidence of this type of case and little old me in there at the same time was just too much for me.
How many of you had to go through a similar experience?
