Justice is blind, but courtrooms aren't

I have just been summoned for jury duty. I'm a little scared! I think it might be a criminal trial, since I have to show up on a Tuesday instead of a Thursday. I hope it isn't a murder! And I super hope I don't get sequestered. That would suck.

My mom got sequestered for a murder trial once. I don't remember how long ago this was, but I was pretty young. Definitely under 10. It was really scary. Since she was sequestered, a policeman brought her home, gave her some short amount of time to get her things, and then took her away again. I was terrified that my mom had been arrested. When I admitted this to her much later (only a few years ago), she scoffed at me. She said it was stupid to think that since she was in the front seat of the police car. My dad agrees that it was nervousing (to use Becky's word), however. He said that at first the policeman wouldn't even let her tell him what was going on, and only reluctantly allowed him to know that she was just being sequestered.

I've served jury duty once before, back in Athens. I was worried about that trial too, but it turned out to be silly. The case was for possession of marijauna, and the idiot had decided to represent himself. They say "the man who represents himself has a fool for a client", and it was definitely true here. For one thing, he was a highschool drop out. Hmmm... I think I learned somewhere that lawyers generally have at least a highschool degree... Unfortunately, the prosecutor was also pretty dumb. It was definitely not like Law & Order! It was pretty clear that the defendant was guilty, but since the prosecutor did such a horrible job proving it, there was plenty of room left for reasonable doubt, which hung up one of my fellow jurors. We were eventually able to change her mind, and did not have to resort to being a hung jury.

Maybe this new trial will be easy too! Or maybe I won't even get selected to serve. That would be cool. I think I only got chosen the first time because the guy figured a college student would be sympathetic to a pothead... Little did he know what a prude I am!

Anyway, it says I have to dress in courtroom appropriate attire, which it says means no shorts or tank tops. Ok. I can handle that since it's finally starting to cool down here. But what about jeans? Can I wear jeans? I actually don't think I have any courtroom appropriate attire. I definitely don't have anything that's considered "business casual", as I learned when I had to give my talk in Florida last year. Of course, that didn't really matter since it was just an ecology conference, so business casual turned out to be quite casual indeed. And since I was only there for one day, I only had to plan one outfit. But if I get selected for a jury, I could have to report to the courtroom for a whole week, if not longer (maybe it'll be like the OJ trial!). I definitely don't have a week's worth of courtroom attire... Anyone have some nice clothes they can lend me?

The only good thing is that my summons is for after my trip to Georgia next week. Phwew.