There's Not Much to Tell

We haven't had much going on here, mostly due to my illness and the 10 inches of snow we got yesterday.

The good news is that I finally feel like I'm getting over whatever evil disease I've been suffering from. The bad news is that I have not been cleaning the house since I got sick and it is terrifyingly unclean. This means that I'll be doing a whole lot of cleaning on Thursday and Friday in order to make sure it doesn't cut into family time on the weekend.

Jim's company was closed during yesterday's storm, so we had a snow day at home. The kids had fun playing snowball fight with Jim and our neighbors Alex and his two kids, Tyler and Emma. I got a few pictures, which I'll try to post later this week, along with some shots of our new office and Lily's new and improved bedroom. Oh yeah, and the kitchen, which a lot of you haven't seen since the (mostly completed) makeover.

In other news, I have jury duty tomorrow in Framingham. I haven't been in a court since May when I was finishing up my last jury trial. My panel is assigned to Framingham District Court, which means that I'm probably going to be up for selection on a criminal case (misdemeanor, since all felony trials in Massachusetts take place in Superior Courts). My educated guess would be a DUI case, since that's mostly what you see in district court -- that or drug charges.

The last time I was called for jury duty, I had to go to Marlborough District Court. As I handed in my juror information sheet, I asked the court officer whether my address would be kept from the criminal defendant. He glanced at my sheet and said "Don't worry, you're never getting on a criminal jury."

He's probably right. When I was trying cases, the last person I wanted on a civil jury was a lawyer. The big concern is that other jurors will be persuaded by an attorney to adopt his/her point of view because the attorney "knows the law." That means that you could end up trying your case to a jury of one, which is never a good thing. In the criminal context, not only would you try and avoid a lawyer, but you'd also want to avoid anyone who has relatives in law enforcement or who has worked themselves in law enforcement. Why? Because these people are more likely to believe the word of a member of law enforcement than the word of a criminal defendant.

I'd actually like to serve on a jury if I could be sure it would be a one day trial. I think it would be interesting to see how a jury panel thinks about evidence. Unfortunately, I don't know any lawyers who have ever served on a panel once they were admitted to the bar, so I'm pretty sure I won't get to, either. I thought I could call myself a homemaker on the questionnaire, but they make it so you have to tell what you did before you were a homemaker. I had already cleverly disguised my law degree as a doctoral degree, but having to state what my last job was kind of blew that out of the water. Oh well.

It is going to be somewhat of a nightmare to drive to Framingham during rush hour tomorrow. Although I really dread the commute, I am trying to psych myself up for the day by imagining what interesting people I will get to see. More on that later, I hope!