jury duty - part 3: deliberations

read part 1: "picking the jury" here
and part 2: "the trial" here

please keep in mind this is all just from my perspective and is soley my opinion(s).

on thursday, shortly before 10 am we were given the trial and they announced the "alternate" jurors. there were 14 of us jurors in the trial but only 12 got to deliberate. 2 of us were alternates but we didn't get to know who those 2 were until after the trial. being number one juror, i was pretty confident it wasn't me but how much would that suck to see the whole trial and then not get to go in and discuss it with everyone? one guy had gotten sick and was "let go" towards the end of the trial so they really just had to announce one alternate. that person left before deliberations. also, during deliberations one man's wife was hospitalized with something pretty serious so he had to leave mid-deliberating. so it ended up being 11 of us to decide. and it had to be unanimous. each decision had to be absolutely unanimous and we couldn't stop until they were. there were 7 counts in this trial.

there had to be a "leader" amoungst us (they had a term for this person, but it escapes me at the present time; head juror, maybe?) and of course the "crazy" lady in our group raised her hand. she was to lead the discussions and attempt to keep us on track. so here i am thinking, ok this shouldn't take too long, shouldn't be too bad.

we get into our deliberation room, which is a small room with a large table in it surrounded by comfy chairs and we all take a seat. the room has a large white board in it. a large pad of paper stand. a sink with a coffee maker. a large-ish window that is placed relatively high (maybe to keep people from staring outside while deliberating?). and a small bathroom for each gender. we are given the guidelines for deliberations as well as the evidence from the case. we all got notepads to take notes on during the case so we got those of our own too. we were then essentially locked in.

so the "crazy" lady begins talking about the case and things and people are conversing a little with her. she then stops the talking and says something along the lines of "well, just to start off, no one thinks he's innocent, right?" GULP. um... what?!?!? my heart and my jaw sank to the floor. my mind was racing as was pulse. this is quite possibly the worst possible thing i could have heard at that moment. what do i do? do i speak up? do i hope that someone else is feeling like i do and will speak up? what is going on? i was sure that deliberations would be easy...

i waited a tiny bit while millions of thoughts ran through my head and we all looked around the room. no one said anything. so i did what i needed to do; i said, "i do." and so the real, unforeseen deliberations began...

the whole room looked at me. i could have sworn they were starring me down. that there was a large spot light pointed directly at me. i probably shrunk down in my chair a couple of inches. no one else spoke up that they thought he was innocent; they all were under the same thinking as crazy lady. this was not what i wanted. i didn't even want to be on the jury in the first place but then to come into the deliberation room being the only one thinking we couldn't find him guilty of anything? so i was going to have to speak up and say my side against 11 others (at that point). i and i alone was going to have to defend my stand point. i was not comfortable convicting this young boy of murder or manslaughter. i was not going to back down and let him go to jail for something we had no proof that he did or didn't do. i had SO many thoughts run through my head. were the rest of them all just racist? were they age-ists? or femenists? or what? how could they be thinking so differently than me? weren't we in the same exact trial, hearing the same exact things?

but i didn't have much time to think (which i hated; i'm a thinker. i need to think about things) when she shot back at me "ok. why?" i took a deep breath and told the outline of why i felt that way. i then asked if anyone else felt the way i did. there was one young girl (the youngest in our group) that said she wasn't sure what she felt; she was on the fence for both ways. and there was another girl somewhere around my age that said she kind of felt that way. that was it. and i could tell they weren't going to say much to help me out. ok, i guess i was going to have to fight for what i thought was right by myself...

after i had explained my side a little bit more, one of the men, tom, suggested we start over and write out a time line and who the main "players" were so we could go over the storyline and discuss important details together. at that point, i was so thankful for tom! and over the course of that day, i would become more and more thankful for tom! i needed to take what i felt like was the weight of the world off my shoulders for a bit and just breathe and think.

we laid it out and discussed a little bit of the story. but we still needed more structure to our deliberating. so we decided to start reading through the counts to see if we could eliminate any of them right off the bat. this turned out to be harder than we thought it might be. it also brought out "loud man"'s opinions. he was an ex-military guy who was very set in his ways and he spoke very loudly. he was the one in the empty court room that talked the entire time and everyone heard every part of his stories. in going over the counts, he came out and said that he 100% thought demetrius was guilty and there was no way he was backing down from that. ever. oh boy, so here we have loud, stubborn, military man versus quiet, doesn't-want-to-be-the-center-of-attention me on opposing sides. at this point i thought "this wasn't going to end well, if at all."

about this time we were to go to lunch. we were escorted by 2 deputies to and from lunch. lunch was on the court house and we weren't allowed to speak to anyone that wasn't on our jury and we couldn't talk about the trial while at lunch. so we tried to take our minds off the trial and make small talk with each other. i had had a couple of conversations with a girl about my age, sierra, and i was so thankful to have her to chat with. she had also just been to a bachelorette party a couple of weekends before so we joked that if we were sequested over the weekend, her and i would be having my bachelorette party together. i also enjoyed the company of a younger than me male who was in a band and liked pretty cool music. he was interesting to listen to. there was also an awesome and funny big black guy in the group. his name escapes me but he was always smiling and cracking jokes, making us laugh. i was also very thankful to have him in the group. he tried and usually succeeded in keeping things light-hearted.

lunch was a buffet and was cut short for a reason that we were never actually told. we were hustled back into the jury room and resumed deliberations. at this point i'll also mention mary. she was a tiny little lady about my mom's age or a little older and she was smart. so smart. and she was calm and collected and understood that i felt like i was in a pickle. she sat next to me in the jury room and was constantly re-assuring me and patting my leg under the table when i needed a boast of confidence. i looked to her to explain things to me and to make me feel better about things. mary, being the tiny little all of 95 pounds she was, was my rock. i know that deliberations would have been 10,000 times more horrible for me if i had not had her.

without going into too much detail about how i came to the conclusion i did, i will tell you that there were little things that other people picked up on that i didn't during the trial. there were some character flaws that i had overlooked (probably a partial explanation of why i'm such a bad judge of character). but here is what i eventually, probably around 2 pm, came to the conclusion of:

1. there is no way that julian was not hysterically crying and screaming in pain from his injuries. the doctors said many things to force that point home. that child would have been in tremedous amounts of pain. everyone in that house would have heard him screaming (all 4 of which said they didn't hear anything) and especially the 2 in the same room with him. anyone having been around children (his mother especially; i should also take this time to say that demetrius has a son as well that he sees once in a while and he has nephews/nieces that he's always around) would have known that this kid was in severe pain. and the fact that no one is saying he was screaming or even crying is suspicious.

2. both demetrius and jessica say they didn't know what happened to julian but we know that something had to have happened to him in that house and either one or both of them were in his presence all night long. so either only one of them knows something or they're both covering up for each other and they both hit julian. the likelihood being that they both hit him because neither were alone with him after 930 pm. if one of them saw the other hit him and they didn't hit him, why wouldn't they tell on the other and save themselves from jail and a trial and charges and such? suspicious.

i had come to the conclusion that demetrius had to have either done something to julian or knew what happened to julian or both. at this point, i looked to mary and asked her if, her being a mother and a kind-hearted person, she honestly believed that demetrius had a part in this. i asked her this even after everyone else had said they believed it. and she looked me in the eye and said yes. she was very certain that he somehow had a part in it. and she thought that they both probably did.

ok, so i was convinced demetrius had something to do with it or knew something at least, but i still was not ok convicting him of murder or manslaughter. he did not go up to julian with intent to kill him and without solid proof i was never going to be ok with that. once i expressed my change in thoughts to my fellow jury-mates (after someone had to sssh the loud guy so i could talk) we started back with the counts. we decided to start at the bottom of the counts and see where that took us. the bottom/least count was manslaughter due to child neglect. the definition of this one said that a person was guilty of this count if they knew something was wrong with a child and neglected to do anything for the child or get any help for the child. in going around the room, we were all sure that he was guilty of this. that he (and jessica) had to have known that julian was hurting badly. and they did nothing. so we had that count taken care of.

at that point i felt good about the deliberations. i felt like i stood my ground while also being open enough to listen and process what the others had to say. and i felt like we were in a good place and all were on the same page. it seemed that everyone else felt the same way i did with regards to murder and manslaughter. that we had no proof or any evidence to convict him of these. i was hopeful that deliberations would be done before dinner.

enter once again: loud man. he was still not budging and was adament that he never would. "this boy (or someone) needs to pay for the death of the child." and such. ok. this was not going end before dinner and possibly not before the weekend. or ever....

we tried to talk with loud man for a while and then were called for dinner. we went to dinner and ate. it was delicious. i don't rememer where we went but we weren't rushed this time. i had grilled chicken and steamed broccoli. and immensly enjoyed my fountain diet coke! we may be in for the long haul (again, deliberations could go until 9 pm before they would sequester us in a hotel).

when we got back to the jury room and started doing more discussion with loud man, i realized tom hadn't said much at dinner and as i looked at him i could see the wheels turning. after a little while, he spoke up and took over the floor. he completely changed our tactic to get through to loud man and it made so much sense. he sort of played devils advocate by coming at the counts from a backwards angle. he was so smart! after an hour or so of this discussion, something in loud man's face changed and i could see that he had seen the light. that we couldn't convict him of murder or manslaughter. thank goodness for tom!!!

we went through the rest of the counts and all agreed to not guilty. the crazy lady wrote down our verdicts to the counts on the official sheet and went out to get our law clerk. we were then told to stay in our jury room. it was about 730 pm at that time and we had been in deliberations since maybe 9 am. we all breathed a little easier then until we realized we didn't know what was to happen now. it was so late. were they still going to sequester us until court the next morning? or what? we waited probably about half an hour when the law clerk came back in and told us the "they" were ready for us. huh? "they" were ready?

turns out everyone was there or able to get there quickly. everyone was ready to hear our verdict including a bunch of demetrius' family in the stands. we filed in, surprised at the amount of people that were there after 8 pm and unsure where to look. we took our seats and i found myself unable to look anyone but the judge and the law clerk. i couldn't believe i had to sit there while the lawyers, defendent and his family waited on pins and needles to find out our verdicts.

part 4: "the verdict and after" coming soon

tid bits

randoms from the beginning of february:

loved my little messy braid and light blue fingernails 

we went bowling with manda and johnny! it was lots of fun.

i hadn't bowled in forever but our shoes were cute :)

i found this online the other day and i'm positive that it's me :]

i so needed to hear/see/read this fortune!

big changes are coming for us oleson's.

they've taken a while to play out fully

(and taken a toll on my stress level)

but we're getting closer to being positive about where the near future will take us!

an attempt of photo every hour

for a while i have been wanting to try the photo every hour deal to document a typical day in the life of me for 2012. i attempted it last saturday but only got about 2 pictures... i didn't do a whole lot that day :) so monday i tried again. i did better than 2 but still didn't accomplish the whole waking day.

first up was 515 am crossfit.

here is a look at some of the tools we use. 

next, was a yummy shake for my post workout protein and breakfast.

then came work.

i am trying to get away from drinking pop so i've been having some coffee in the mornings instead. that is if you can even call what i drink "coffee." i mix a little less than half the cup of water with the same amount of coffee and throw in some sugar free caramel macchiato creamer. i can't have a whole lot of coffee or i get really jittery. my coworker says it looks like i'm drinking a milk shake. but it's doing the trick. 

the sunday before, the hubs and i ran errands and i had birthday money from dsw to spend so he let me have some shoe therapy. and i remembered that i was wearing a pair of my sweet new shoes. they're roxy brand and kind of like slippers but they're a full shoe with laces and every thing. i love them! and they're so comfy.

then came lunch. hubs and i made quinoa for the first time and it's actually really great! i have yet to plug it in to my meal tracker (my fitness pal) to see the specs on it but i enjoy it! so i had 1/2 cup of quinoa, 4 oz chicken and a small mixed greens salad with a teaspoon of trader joe's balsalmic vinagrette dressing. tasty! 

then i must have been busy at work because i didn't take any more pictures until i got home and got to watch this wonderful lady! she makes me happy! 

then at night my brother and i went out to dinner with our dad. it was good times and too much food. :) followed by cinnamon ice cream (yum!).

it was a good day!

love day :: v day 2012

it's our first married valentime's day! <3

we are forever each other's valentine! :)

my mom ingrained in my the need to wear the holiday colors on each holiday and i can't get away from it. so here's what i wore to work today. nice bathroom shot :] 

i love this scarf! i haven't worn it in a while and i'm glad i thought of it this morning. i also love wearing scarves tied in bows lately!

whugh... bad office lighting... 

then when i was driving home from work, my dress combined with my houndstooth coat made a heart in my lap :) i'm a nerd.

here is what i gave al for valentime's day: 4 homemade coupons.

an hour & a half hour each of:

guilt-free video game time

and

pester-free time :)

he's obsessed with mw3 and i'm a pester pot.

he gave me the movie breaking dawn and made dinner in bed:

caesar salad &

chicken and veggies with a lil bit of bowtie pasta

then peanut butter cup ice cream

yum!!

hope you all had a fabulous valentine's day

and you were shown just how much you're loved.

jury duty - part 2: the trial

and so starts the trial:

it started out with the opening statements of the lawyers from both sides. i won't get into that here as lawyers are very good with words and implications, and i think it's more important to hear the story from the people that were actually there. they both tried to convince us their story was right, obviously, but i took it with a grain of salt until i heard/saw actual facts.

we had to see the autopsy pictures on the first day (the medical examiner was one of the first witnesses). the pictures were not fun to look at, but they weren't as bad as i had expected. we saw mostly just pictures of his dead body, one or two with his skin pulled back and a couple of the inside of him/his organs. the poor kid (2 year old, julian) had bruises everywhere! some big, most small. the medical examiner indicated that the small bruises were indicitive of hand or fist bruises. before i get into more of that, let's lay out the basic timeline of events of the night in question.

here's how the story goes from the point of the defendent:

it was about 830 pm in september of 2009. demetrius (the defendent) had a girlfriend but called over a "booty call" that night. that being jessica, who brought her 2 year old son julian with her. demetrius was not the father of julian and claims he hadn't seen him but a few times before. jessica and julian arrived at about 9 pm via the city bus. part of demetrius' story was that julian was sleeping when they arrived, but we saw a video tape from the bus in which he was clearly awake and moving and playing and seemingly acting like a normal 2 year old. shortly after they arrive jessica walks across the street to rainbow foods to grab something to eat leaving julian with demetrius and his mother and his mother's boyfriend. from what we could gather, julian was up in demetrius' mom, rose's room with all of them.

when jessica got back, her, demetrius and julian went downstairs to demetrius' room to watch a movie. they watched a movie and julian fell alseep. sometime in the time frame of the first movie, julian threw up. they supposedly cleaned up the vomit, demetrius got him a glass of water and laid him back down. and he went back to sleep. a bit later demetrius' friend, bo, came over for a bit. they watched part of another movie, smoked some, and after maybe an hour, bo left. we heard from bo; he said nothing that he noticed was out of the ordinary and he saw julian sleeping.

after bo left, jessica and demetrius fooled around. during their fooling around, julian woke up again and demetrius said he was really warm and sweating. so supposedly, demetrius laid him in front of a fan and went back to jessica. then they went to sleep. some parts of the story say julian threw up again, some don't. early in the morning they woke up and checked on julian. they found him not breathing so demetrius "tried" to do cpr even though he didn't know how, while jessica called 911. when the police/ambulance got there, demetrius ran julian upstairs and said he might have bonked julian's head against the wall. the paramedics took over and brought julian to the hospital where they were able to sustain him a bit on life support. by 2 pm the family decided to take him off life support after getting advice from the doctors. demetrius was then taken to the police station and interviewed; we got to watch his interview which is where we learned most of his side of the story. he seemed very uneasy (as someone should having had a 2 year old just die in your presence) and didn't say or do anything other than what you might expect. but he also just kept saying that he didn't know what happened. he reiterated it many times or he would say to ask jessica since she was the boy's mother. he gave us no information as to what happened to julian or where the bruises came from.

so the first couple of witnesses were the medical examiner that did the autopsy on julian as well as the children's specialist doctor that worked on julian while he was in the hospital. here's what we learned from them: amoungst the many bruises on his body, again mostly small bruises indicitive of hands/fists, there were a couple of slightly larger bruises on his side and some small and one large bruise on his head. internally, julian was much worse off. his pancreas was severed in half, completely in 2 parts. a large artery in the same area of the pancreas was severed in half. his kidney had large, deep lacerations in it. both doctors had previously seen injuries like this but they indicated that usually those sort of injuries came from a person who had been in a severe car accident. and both doctors agreed that had julian been brought in within a couple of hours of these injuries happening, he could have been saved. julian ended up dying from internal bleeding mostly out of the severed artery. we also learned that julian could not have lived with that type of injury for very long, 5-8 hours maximum so this told us that something had to have happened after jessica and julian got to demetrius' house.  they also said that julian would have been in excrutiating pain. tremendous amounts of pain. there would be no way that child wasn't screaming and crying his head off in pain. something had to have happened in that house.

on friday, we had been in the court room for only about an hour, took our 15 minute morning break and were not called back into the court room for quite a while. when we were called back in, we were told that they had "work" to do and we were dismissed for the day. very strange. we had counted all day friday into the time line of the trial (which we thought we would start deliberations on wednesday of the following week) so taking almost a whole day off was worrisome. i was afriad of 2 things: 1. that it was going be called a mistrial and we wouldn't get to see the outcome or finish what we started. and 2. that it would push the trial back and we'd be sequestered over the weekend which was the date for my bachelorette party! so i got to add those 2 worries onto all the other worries i had, for the whole weekend. 

we came back in on monday, waited for a bit, and were called back into the court room and the trial proceeded. we were not told until the end of day monday that the reason we got friday off was because a new witness was discovered and the police and lawyers had to interview her.

we heard from a bunch of witnesses but i won't go into each one in depth (partly because i can't remember them all, partly because i came sum up what they said in smaller detail than the 4 days it took us to hear them all). i will give brief overviews below:

-a couple of police officers/sergants that dealt with demetrius: they said he was distraught but didn't have much of a story for them. his story stayed relatively the same, but wasn't helpful because he said he "didn't know" when asked what happened to julian. they also told us that jessica's reaction, both in the interviews and in the hospital, was strange. they didn't see her cry. they actually saw her laughing multiple times. she didn't seem distraught or grieving or really even sad, more irritated.

-jessica's family: not much info we got there as they didn't see julian after about 4 pm that day but did indicate that he didn't seem sick and seemed normal when they saw him. we did learn that jessica's brother who was 14ish had previously hit Julian but it wasn't anything the family worried about.

-daycare lady: she basically was just able to further solidify that julian was fine and was without bruises the day of the night in question. she had been with him, he'd acted normal and she'd changed his diapers and saw no bruises.

-rose, demetrius' mom: we basically learned that she has/had no idea what's going on. nothing she said made much sense or aligned with anything. she was kind of a strange lady and we basically couldn't take anything she said as real or factual. also, that she was likely pretty drunk or high the night this happened and she's a very light sleeper (someone who would have heard a child screaming/crying but claimed to not hear anything).

-tone, rose's boyfriend/fiance: not much here either. he was also home the night in question but was sleeping most of the night. he was able to say he saw julian when they arrived and didn't notice anything funny.

-nicole, the new witness: nicole was/is a jailmate of jessica's. they had been friends for most of jessica's stay and jessica started to trust nicole and confide in her. jessica was asked twice about the night of julian's death in nicole's presence. the first time people were talking negatively to jessica about her killing her kid and she supposedly fought back in saying "no, my boyfriend killed him." her "boyfriend" being demetrius. the second time, nicole asked jessica about it when they were alone and just talking and jessica said that after julian had thrown up at demetrius' house, she took him up to the bathroom and slammed him against the toilet and told him to throw up in there if he needed to. all of this is according to nicole.

things to note:
1. we didn't get to hear from demetrius. he never took the stand. he just sat next to his lawyers the entire trial. i didn't like this fact. i like to draw conclusions from people; i like to see their reactions and how they answer questions. i like to hear both sides. but this was kind of hinted at in the pre-trial questioning so we were kind of expecting that.

2. once a jury is given the case for deliberations, we were not allowed to talk to anyone other than our jury mates (we had not been allowed to even talk to them about the case up until deliberations and holding it all in was really tough!). in deliberations, we weren't allowed to have our cellphones or computers or anything. and if we didn't come to a decision by the end of the day (the end of the day for deliberations could be as late as 9 pm) we would have to be sequestered in a hotel over night with again no contact with anyone in any form. they had talked about the possibility of being sequestered multiple times throughout the weeks because since we were on a longer trial, it could very well happen.

3. i am a horrible judge of character. i trust and like people way too easily. i basis my decisions of other people off of current mood/actions and just assume that is the main/typical personality of the person in front of me. this, unfortunately is not always the case. i'll say it again, i am a horrible judge of character. (my brother happens to be a great judge of character; looking back, i wish my brother could have been there with me. i would like to have gotten his take on demetrius and a few others before the end of the trial and extra info came out). i was aware of this flaw in me going into the trial. but i held my head high and knew what i believed going into deliberations. just about from the start of that second week, i was sure that demetrius was innocent. or at least that we had no facts to find him guilty on. especially when the charges were as large as manslaughter and murder. by wednesday (the last full day of the trial) i was sure that deliberations were going to be easy and quick because we wouldn't be able to convict him of anything. i mean, we had just heard, from nicole, that jessica had slammed julian into the toilet which could possibly have been the source of the internal damage.


we were given the case early on thursday and i would soon find out i was in a whole different ballpark than i ever expected....

part 3: "deliberations" coming soon.

read  part 1: "picking the jury" here

jury duty - part 1: picking the jury

i was first called for jury duty when i lived in eau claire. for obvious reasons, i could not participate at that distance. i then got called again in the summer of 2011, but it was for the week that we were up north on vacation so it got post-poned to september of 2011. since i live in ramsey county i had to go to the location that is in downtown st. paul. luck had it that i also worked in downtown st. paul. i looked it up on google maps and it was 2 blocks from my work. so i decided to go with it since i could park at my work for free, walk to jury duty and still be able to help out at work on my off hours (lunch and before jury duty).

i had talked with a few people who had recently done jury duty and to summarize, they said you sit there for the first day and work on whatever you brought. then they either tell you to come back on the second day and you sit there for the second day or half of it, or they tell you that you're on call for the rest of the week and you're off the hook. easy as that.

so when my monday came around, i went to work, grabbed my laptop and a bunch of things to do and headed on my marry way. fully expecting to get a lot of work done, have a nice quiet day, and maybe get some of my book read (the hunger games!). i got there early, as i always do, found a seat in the back corner near an outlet and got set up. the lady came on the speaker to give us our instruction and i skimmed over the jury handbook. after our orientation, i got to work entering invoices for work. about 15 minutes later, the lady was back and indicated she would be calling about 30 of us for a trial. ok, there's gotta be a good 200+ people in the room so not too likely i will be called. they went in alphabetical order so of course i had to wait until the end. phew, i wasn't called. back to entering invoices. 15 minutes later she's back, says another 30 will be called and i know with my luck there's no way i'm escaping a second round. i sit and ponder if i will actually be called or not for a little bit but then figure it's gonna be me. so i begin to pack up my things as i know it will take me a while to get everything together. before i'm finished, i hear my name. well so much for my preconceived notions...

we are corraled into 2 elevators and taken up to the 13th floor. i will pause here for a moment to say that the ramsey county court house building is actually very cool to see. just about everything is original in the building including the wood panelling on the walls and the elevators. very cool to see, although the elevators were a bit nerve wracking. i wish i would have taken some pictures of the building itself and the cool, old, little features. for example, they still had the old mail tubes exposed so you could see them. i'll have to go back there sometime just to take pictures.

once we get to the 13th floor in the padded wall elevators we are guided into an empty court room. it is similar to what i was expecting in some regards but very different in others. it was very small. with the judge's raised seating area, the witness stand next to that, then the jurors box, a table in front of the jurors box for the defense and the prosecution (they share, strange to me), a fenced/gated area you have to go through to get to any of these areas, then a bunch of wooden benches for people to watch the trial. again i wish i would have taken pictures, even just of the empty one we were housed in.

we were given a short brief of what the trial we were up for consisted of: it involved the death of a 2 year old child and we would have to see autopsy pictures of the child's body. yikes! here is where my nerves started rolling and didn't really stop for the entire 2 weeks... after the briefing and little bit of q and a, we were given a long questionaire to fill out for the judge and attorney's to go over in order to begin the jury selection process. once we finished the questionaire, we were free for the day but had to return at 845 the next morning. i, unlike most of my jury-mates, went to work for the remainder of the day. the nerves stayed at bay a bit as i was in a comfortable place (work) and kept my mind busy with work.

tuesday morning we reported back to our empty courtroom on the 13th floor and were not given much direction/details. after about an hour we were called into the actual courtroom where the trial would take place and told that they were mulling over our questionaires and might pull some individual people in for questioning. and here is where the almost unbearable nerves set in for a couple of days. not only was i feeling nervous just being there and unsure of what was going to happen, but then i, who hates being the center of attention, would have to go into a room full of people and be in the spotlight and answer questions. tuesday was one of the longest days of my life. i spent 8 nervous hours on a wooden bench. thank goodness for my kindle, but still one can only divert the mind for so long. a lot of people were called in and some were let go shortly afterward, but in the end, i wasn't called in for individual questioning. i sighed a big breath of relief when we were dismissed at the end of the day. then i realized that i didn't know what that meant. was that because i wasn't going to be chosen? or was it because i was? or did they see in my questionaire that i was stressed due to wedding planning and thus didn't want me? i got to my car in the parking ramp and i couldn't keep the tears from coming. i had spent a horrible, nervous 8 hours on a wooden bench and had no idea what was to come for me.

wednesday morning we reported to our empty courtroom again and were told we'd be ushered into the actual court room for some group questions. we were told to once again sit in the wooden benches in the back of the courtroom but that they would be seating people in the jury box as a start to get jury members but that it was no way indicative of who would be on the jury. so we all sit down and they were explaining where the first person was to sit when they were called. during this time i'm thinking, 'ok hopefully i'm not called but if i am, i'm a "w" so i should be at the end so i can see where/how everyone else goes up there.' then, in a flash, the first name is called: it's my name (heart sinks). seriously? first? gulp. i almost trip on my way up to the box and luckily they call the second name right away so i can feel like the pressure is off me. once they sat the 14 of us in the box and 6 more of us in front of the box they were ready to begin the questioning. and of course, i'm first. i'm never first. i don't like to be first. i don't want to be first. i'm NEVER first. i'm a "w" or at the very least a "v." i'm do NOT want to go first, i don't know what they're gonna ask about, i am freaking out at this point! but here comes the questions, no turning back now.

the defense starts. i get absolutely drilled by her regarding my answers to questions on the questionaire. everything from al and his criminal justice degree to my relationship with cops to my wedding planning stress to my beliefs and morals to whether or not i think i can be true and fair to if i can deal with seeing autopsy pictures to if i can focus for a multiple day trial. she drills me for 15 minutes. it was horrible (actually in hind sight not that bad, i was just really nervous and felt like i was being tested or that my being a good person was being questioned. in reality, they were just trying to get to know me). then the prosecution drills me less hard for 5 more minutes. then they move on. finally! we have to sit there for most of the day listening to all 20 people get questioned. and mostly, the same questions over and over again. another long day but at least the chairs are comfortable. we are sent back to the empty court room. we sit for a while then are told they will seat the actual jury and we are to go back and sit in the wooden bench area again so they can seat the actual jury. i am hoping that i will be dismissed (i'd like to see a trial but i already had stress and i'd had enough of the nerves). they call the first name. i'm pretty sure i gasped. it was me. i was number one juror all along; not a doubt in anyone's mind (except mine) that i'd be up there....

they sat the rest of the jury and i didn't even listen, i couldn't. i had too much running through my mind and i was having a hard time holding back the tears. we were dismissed and i bolted for the elevator. of course, it was packed and it stopped at almost every floor on the way down. i needed to get out of there and i needed to be alone. when we reached the ground floor i took off. i walked as fast as i could while trying to look/act normal. i got to my truck and the flood gates opened. i balled straight for a good 5 minutes. how could i be expected to make a desicion that affected the rest of someone's life? especially when i can't even decide what to eat for lunch? or what i'm gonna do on a given night because i don't want to affect someone else, especially negatively. or when i over think everything and still can't make a decision to save my life. i am probably one of the most indecisive people in the world. and now i am responsible for what may or may not happen to the life of a 22 year old boy.

i didn't want to do it. i think i repeated that sentence 300 times within those 2 weeks. i didn't want to do it. i had no idea what to expect (i like to be prepared and i totally wasn't for this). i eventually bucked up and realized i'd just have to do it and do it to the best of my ability. i didn't sleep well that night even though i was exhausted. it's funny how being nervous and worrying for so many days in a row can really take it out of you.

the next day (thursday) was the start of the trial. we had to report to the empty court room every morning before going into trial. we waited for about an hour until we were called in. we took a seat, the judge reminded us that we were still under oath and that we were not supposed to talk about the case to anyone or look up anything on the case online or other places. rumor had it that our trial was in the local news at the time. then the trial started, the first witness was called. i was so relieved that the trial had started and the first witness was done; i kind of knew what to expect for the trial from then on out. although i knew the deliberations were coming and that part may be hard for me, i figured that was still a ways off. so i focused on the trial.

jury duty - part 2: "the trial" coming soon.

bits & pieces of a birthday weekend

life has been a bit exciting and pretty stressful this week; there are big changes coming for the olesons! here are a few tid bits of my 28th birthday weekend.

friday at work:

-i got to deal with a pet peeve of mine: long sleeves that are too short...



my co-workers helped me celebrate with 4 mini cakes;

they were cute and delicious

i have been obsessed with my new ring this week!

i love the colors!

and i love my fingerless gloves!

 then my actual birthday consisted of:

-a crossfit wod named after me with the things i love in it:

vanessa

40-30-20-10

double unders

kettlebell swings

ghd sit-ups

and i beat both the boys i was working out with!! :]

then the fam took me out to lunch at khan's;

so yummy!!

afterwards, we did presents and my mom had made me a funfetti cake that we cracked into. 

then al and i picked up a free couch from luke and malia,

watched wipeout,

ran some errands,

and went to the softball party at manda and johnny's.

it was a busy but successful birthday!

i have been wanting to go thrifting for a while now and today i finally made it over to savers.

i didn't end up buying anything but consider this old school saved by the bell game to play with my brother. seeing it on the shelf made me smile and chuckle. we love that show!