I'd always been intrigued by the idea of sitting on a jury, even looked forward to it, but had never even been called to report until 2 years ago. Unfortunately it was the worst possible time, work-wise, for me to get called, and I couldn't be out of the office on a multiple day case. I get selected as part of a potential pool for a trial, and the judge calls up to the bench anyone who may not be able to serve to discuss their reasoning. I give him my story about work and it will be impossible to be away, etc etc etc, but he just looked at me and said that if he let everyone off of a jury who had work to do, he'd never fill out a jury made up of anyone other than retirees. Fair enough, but I still couldn't do it. So of course, I get called to the jury box, judge explains that it is an armed robbery/attempted murder case, expected to go 3-5 days, etc, and now the lawyers have the opportunity to look at our questionnaires, ask us questions, and they have the ability to remove some people from the jury for any reason.
At this point I lock eyes with the defendant and give him the best death stare/"gonna sell your ass up the river" look that I could come up with, like he did something to my family and I want revenge. He taps his lawyer on the shoulder, nods in my direction, and I'm excused.
Fast forward a couple of hours, and I'm on my way back into the courthouse from lunch, the defendant and his boys are sitting in front of the courthouse having a smoke. Walk past, they all get up and follow me in. That was a very uncomfortable few minutes waiting in the security line to get back into the courthouse.
