Sprkus

I only have seven minutes this morning, so I have to make this quick.

Jury duty for Franklin County’s Common Pleas Court so far has been outrageously boring. There have been a couple interesting parts. Seeing the courtrooms and almost being sat for a murder case, but overall it has only been a bunch of waiting.

I arrived Monday at 8 a.m., shelled out my $5 for parking, and joined the other 199 or so jurors in filling out paperwork. We listened to the jury commissioner go on and on about fulfilling our civic duty and then watched a video staring NBC4’s own Angela Pace, educating us on the difference between civil and criminal court.

In other words, it was more boring than high school social studies.

At 10 a.m. they were done with our orientation and the rest of the time was ours. To wait. And wait. And wait to be called as actual jurors.

Out of all the jurors, I was one of maybe 20 that never was called into a courtroom.

My luck changed on Tuesday when I was called in right away to potentially sit on the jury of Terell Minnifield, 20, who was charged as an accomplice to murder, robbery and other counts. There is an article in the Dispatch on the case here. After the judge and prosecutor quized us for an our and a half, the defense attorney called a recess.

He wanted Minnifield’s family to show up and convince him to plead guilty. They did and he did.

Us jurors were released and it was back to the jury pool room to commence with the waiting, which I did for the rest of the day.

One positive, however, is I’ve knocked out the first 169 pages of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Children of Hurin.”