Jury Duty - Out of the Basement and Into the Clouds

Yesterday started out excellent, with a good swim and an anticipated day away from Jury Duty. Except ... the best laid plans of men and courts seem to never correlate all that well. I phoned in again shortly after 11:30 am as instructed, and voila! My group was called back to be at the Jury room by 2:25 pm. I texted DH that he would need to be back at the shop no later than 1:15 so that I could grab some things from home and head downtown to the courthouse, and abandoned the task I was working on. 

The Ramsey County courthouse is a lovely building, built 
during the Great Depression. It features lots of brass and 
a large variety of astonishing wood. The Jury Room is in the 
lowest level, and the courtroom we were in yesterday 
afternoon was up on floor 14. Today's proceedings will 
be on floor 13, so still up a ways. 

DH came in on time and I headed out the door, went home and grabbed my summons sheet, portable charger (which was almost out of power) and a handbag, and headed downtown. I'm starting to get used to downtown St Paul streets again - a bit frightening since downtown St Paul is a nightmare, not very well laid out at all. I made it to the Jury waiting room in time and settled down, trying to get a bit of charge onto my phone. I needn't have bothered, though. Within 40 minutes my name was chosen as one of 30 to go up to the 14th floor for possible selection for a case. 

On the main floor, as a centerpiece, is a huge 
three-story sculpture called "Vision of Peace". 
It features a stylized Native American holding 
a "peace pipe" with people below. It's a 
magnificent sculpture, but I find it a bit 
demeaning, actually. I know it's been 
controversial, but art sometimes is, and it is 
most definitely a serious work of art. It is rather 
hard to hide a three-story sculpture, however. 

Once in the courtroom, 21 names were called at random and seated and questioned as potential jurors in a criminal case - an assault which had occurred in the latter part of 2021. My name was not called, so I was one of nine jurors left in the spectator benches as the 21 were questioned by the judge. The next stage would have been questions and challenges by the attorneys, but it was already after 4:00 pm and this judge generally dismisses at 4:30 pm. So he dismissed a bit early and we are to assemble in a different courtroom today at 1:30 pm to continue with the trial. 

The courtroom we were in yesterday was very similar 
to this. They had extra chairs in front of the jury 
box so that 21 people were able to be seated as their 
names were called. I'm rather looking forward to the 
back and forth while the final jury is chosen. I have no 
idea how long the trial will be, but I'm committed now. 

Even though I'm not one of the 21, I still need to be in attendance in the courtroom, so I'll be there this afternoon. That eliminates my weekly chat with Aearwen, but we've had to cancel in the past and have survived with even more to talk about the next week. At least it wasn't anything monumental and life changing - just the wheels of government getting in the way. We'll catch up next week after Jury Duty is a thing of my past. Right now, though, I'm finishing my daily post, putting the trash onto the curb, and heading to the pool. I have a lot to do before I'm back in court at 1:30 pm. Have an excellent day and Slava Ukraini.