Bah

My wife just got "selected" for jury duty. I use the word "selected" with a high degree of animosity, because she did not volunteer for this task, did not want this task, but went through the "selection" process because she was threatened with fines and inprisonment if she didn't.

There was almost a hundred working-age adults at this day-long process representing 800 man-hours of lost work... so a few lawyers and county judge could hand-pick a dozen(plus two alternates)of what amounts to hostile jurors to hear a civil case.

There is no public transportation between where we live and this minor little country court house, and since my wife no longer drives, it has fallen on me to get her to the courthouse on time every day of this trial, and then drive her home at day's end. This means a bit over sixty miles of travel each and every day, or about $10.00 worth of gasoline, plus I have to wander around the halls of the courthouse all day, or spend even more on gas.

Ths thing is predicted to last around 15 days, or $150.00 worth of gasoline to us. I am told she will get about ten dollars a day.

Which brings up another point:

A judge gets paid very well to sit on high and pronounce all his earth-shaking decisions. Lawyers get disgustingly large amounts of money to shyster away all day long, but these jurors are getting $1.25 an hour. What sort of crap is that?

If they want jurors that actually want to sit on the panel--who will actually pay attention--not a bunch of hostile jurors that have been threatened into service and who would love to be anywhere else, pay them a living wage--not as much as the lawyers and the judge gets--but enough to keep afloat.

I know the constitution ensures that a citizen gets a trial with a jury of his peers. But it doesn't say anything about threatening law-abiding citizens with fines and imprisonment to provide such a jury.

Don"t start with that "doing your duty as a citizen" crap--the judge and the lawyers aren't doing any such thing--it's a well paid job to them. If they were "doing their civic duty" like the poor sap jurors, they would be getting $1.25/hr also.

Oh-one other thing... the police station is not in the courthouse building, but there are more paranoids with guns, tazers and mace patroling the place than you could imagine.

Since there has not been a terrorist attack on this courthouse in--oh, about 50,000 years or so--These people must be scared to death of... us.

Addendum:

I just realized that none of our estimated 12 to 20 million illegal aliens will work for as little as $1.25/hr. So what does that say about how the government really values it's citizens?