This was originally published on the old Compassionate Curmudgeon blog on
Today was the first day of the trial, and tomorrow may well be the last.
It was also the first day that the jury gathered together as a distinct group. Yesterday, our panel of 50 prospective jurors made little attempt at conversation, which made the three-hour morning wait extremely excruciating.
But now that we have become The Jury, and there are only 14 of us (including the two alternates), we’ve started the process of “Getting To Know You“.
And you’ll never guess who kicked off the process.
That’s right. It was The Curmudgeon.
The Court Crier had given us a list of our juror numbers and first names, and I was simply trying to match up the names with the numbers.
I knew that Number Nine was Linda, as she and I had begun talking the day before and had always been next to each other. And Number Eight had made a spectacular entrance this morning, so I knew who Veronica was. And I knew Number Eleven, Joseph, from yesterday’s session.
But uttering this out loud, and admitting that as Number Ten I was James, started a round robin of name claiming.
That broke the ice, and so the conversations started.
As Sandra said a little bit later, “James, you got us going and now you’re just sitting back and taking it all in.”
Guilty as charged.
BTW, this seems to be a great group of people. Looking forward to tomorrow.