Mr. Cube Goes to Court

In aside by Rice Cube89 Comments

So as you know, I had jury duty this week and that was a different experience than my previous ones with the judicial process. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been inside a courtroom before, but the first time I went to jury duty, I sat in a holding room for hours until the clerk told us to go home. The next time I was in Illinois for graduate school when California somehow found me, and I had to call and explain to the court that I was a couple thousand miles away. The one before this one was during the height of the pandemic and the process is that you’re supposed to call the court the night before, and they told me we were excused which was a huge sigh of relief.

It seems like the courthouses I’ve been to look nothing like the ornate buildings with the Corinthian columns and the triangle roof thing, but rather like repurposed schools, including this one in Richmond even though it was technically the “Superior Court.” The good news is that this time, when I couldn’t escape jury duty (there’s an email to explain hardships but I’m not a very good liar and I honestly had no excuse not to go, and I don’t think “I have to take care of my new dog because he’s lost without me” will work), my job at least would pay me up to a week. I didn’t need the full week though, but still had to drive out to court for a couple days during this drawn out process.

About 70 of us came on the first morning to check in and receive our jury numbers, I happened to be #54 which most likely meant I wouldn’t have to serve on the panel of 12 plus however many alternates California uses. The jury clerk was a goofball who looked like young Ethan Hawke as a porn star and apparently this was his final week so he didn’t really give a shit although he did his job capably. He did the standard announcements to make sure we knew to be on time and be present until the judge excused us, showed a video, and then we waited for almost four hours until we finally were led up to the courtroom.

I kind of liked the diversity of prospective jurors in this pool, and the prosecution were POC (the district attorney was Black and his paralegal was Latino) while the public defender looked like Dog the Bounty Hunter but probably less racist. The judge was a soft-spoken but firm woman who apologized for the court taking forever to get us started. I kind of wish GBTS or Julie or Craig Calcaterra was around to tell me whether I can even tell you passing details about the case after we were all excused (more on that later) but I’ll just keep the story ambiguous to protect the presumed innocent.

Having read a lot of John Grisham novels and a huge fan of the Legal Eagle YouTube channel, I have a passing understanding of the law (probably mostly from watching My Cousin Vinny) but I am definitely not a lawyer. However, the parts about not discussing details of the case outside the court with anyone besides fellow jurors was common sense, and both the DA and the public defender emphasized the terms “impartial” and “presumed innocent” and “reasonable doubt” before the voir dire process.

Before we got to that point though, the judge was able to dismiss jurors who had mistakenly received a summons despite no longer living in the county, and there was one guy who was cussing out the judicial system and told the judge he was a convicted felon so she was silent for a few seconds to process WTF just happened before dismissing him while I cracked up behind my mask (I mean, I was going to be stuck in a room with a bunch of people for hours, of course I’m wearing a mask!). The judge then moved on to deal with hardship cases, i.e. excessive travel, no jury duty paid time off, etc. This was done in the half hour before we had the lunch break.

Upon return, the judge spent 15 minutes with the hardship cases and dismissed five jurors, then we were all seated randomly except the unlucky first 18, with 12 in the main pit and six alternates (I guess). I thought the DA and the public defender both did a good job, and the DA explained reasonable doubt pretty well while the public defender emphasized the presumption of innocence. Then they did voir dire which was super interesting, where each of the first 18 were grilled (nicely, actually) about their implicit biases and whether they could put their past experiences aside and render a verdict consistent with the applicable law.

At this point I should probably say this was a domestic violence criminal charge and that the defendant was in presence, but based on what I could tell, the DA was unlikely to have the alleged victim testify, while the public defender kept emphasizing the Fifth Amendment, so if this had gone to trial it would have been based on third party eyewitnesses and not the directly affected parties, which would probably have also been interesting to see how the cases would have proceeded. The public defender was very good at explaining how invoking the Fifth is just a protection against self-incrimination and not evidence of guilt, although I suppose when certain ex-Presidents take the Fifth like 500 times in an hour that probably tells you something.

As a staunch opponent of domestic violence and having learned that you should always believe the victim at least to the point of gathering all the facts without condemnation, I can’t tell you how I would have voted had I been selected, but I think there were plenty of folks in the first 18 who have experienced domestic violence in some form or another and they were obviously very upset by it. One woman kept insisting she couldn’t remember shit (and I was wondering how she even got to court in the first place if she had Dory syndrome), but after the judge and the attorneys conferred, she and the various upset jurors were excused and then we had to adjourn for the day.

The next day was super dumb and could have been an email, as we reported on time but within five minutes of being seated, the judge said the case had been resolved and we could all go home as we were excused. I don’t know what a resolution in this case entails but I hope everyone is okay going forward and gets the help they need. I did get a couple days off work though, so I guess that’s a win?

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  2. berselius

    ⚾️ Immaculate Grid 116 7/9:
    Rarity: 339
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    Also got bit by the Trout GG guess.

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  3. andcounting

    I hereby today do thus guarantee: I shall not remember, not for even a fraction of a moment, that Mike Trout has nary a Gold Glove to his name.

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  7. Author
    Rice Cube

    A message has been transmitted to all interested parties for next Dreamcast, which should record just shortly after next week’s trade deadline

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  8. Perkins

    I also got burned on Jeff Kent, but I guessed Scott Rolen for the Angels GG winner. Also incorrect and I must have confused him with Jim Edmonds, whom I used elsewhere.

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  10. Perkins

    Rice Cube:
    Perkins,

    Was David Eckstein one of the possible answers?

    Eckstein was not. On the subject of David Eckstein, I’m always kind of floored to remember his wife plays Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars. She ended up way more famous than he did.

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  19. Perkins

    You gotta love when the Cardinals’ red ass nature comes back to bite them. After being gifted a bullpen game, Cubs really need to win this one.

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  20. Author
    Rice Cube

    Rice Cube,

    Rice Cube,

    Rice Cube,

    Ok so

    Happ has a long backswing and smacked Willy in side of head, very obviously not intentional. Willy hugs Happ on way out, seemingly saying “yeah I know it was an accident” which was classy on his part and should have told the bench and Mikolas that all was forgiven. Mikolas Dempsters the first pitch before nailing Happ on the butt and is ejected justifiably. What is Marmol arguing about? Absolute idiocy.

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  26. andcounting

    Rice Cube: What is Marmol arguing about? Absolute idiocy.

    I wouldn’t want to manage this game either.

    I don’t feel especially bad for the Cardinals, but I don’t like things like this to happen in baseball. You could tell from the look on Mikolas’s face he wanted to start something. I actually don’t mind the pitch at the butt IF he hadn’t thrown the previous pitch up and in. I don’t think anyone thought hitting Willson was intentional, but it still happened. It was still stupid, but I get it a little.

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  37. BVS

    The next day … the judge said the case had been resolved and we could all go home as we were excused. I did get a couple days off work though, so I guess that’s a win?

    So everyone got a square deal, even Mr Cube. (Cough cough)

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  39. Perkins

    ⚾️ Immaculate Grid 117 7/9:
    Rarity: 326
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    Ubaldo Jimenez was an overwhelmingly more popular answer than I expected for Rockies 200K. Also I’d have sworn Joe Smith was on both COL and CIN, but alas no.

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  42. andcounting

    Perkins,

    Today’s links were super informative. I’m guessing anyone who came up with Pedro Astacio and Fergie Jenkins as members of the 200K club for Colorado and Texas respectively was rewarded with a primo rarity score.

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  44. andcounting

    Rice Cube,

    I am a little taken aback by the reaction to the reaction. These guys are entertainers more than anything. Of course the Cardinals’ home broadcast is going to play to the fans. Shrugs all around.

    Throwing TWO pitches at Happ was stupid. Especially immediately after. Competitively, ethically, unwritten-ruly, any way you look at it, it was stupid.

    But ultimately, the definitive thing for me about the ejection was that it was the opposite of an ump show. No one reacted. All 4 umps got together as a crew, discussed it, and came to the unanimous decision he should be tossed. If the home plate ump had just hauled off and thrown him out, maybe it would be worth debating? But when there’s a conference among the umps, that’s pretty much all you can ask for as far as fairness goes.

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  45. berselius

    ⚾️ Immaculate Grid 117 7/9:
    Rarity: 407
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    That Rockies 200k one was brutal

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  49. Perkins

    berselius:
    berselius,

    Thought I’d snag a rare with Mike Hampton but he was much less of a strikeout guy than I thought.

    I thought of Hampton, Aaron Cook, Jeff Francis, Ubaldo Jimenez, and German Marquez. Of those I figured the latter two were most likely and thought Marquez would be more common due to recency bias. Can’t win ‘em all.

    I’ve noticed a lot of the most common answers are recent ones, but for smaller market teams there seems to be an additional dimension of “player was there the last time the team was good.”

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  51. berselius

    Perkins,

    The ones that always surprise me are forgettable closers who played for multiple teams, but once I think about it I’m not as surprised given the stat choices in fantasy baseball.

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  53. BVS

    Has Wesneski been announced the starter for tonight? Or is he being packaged to the Pads for Yu Darvish, (dying laughing).

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  56. Perkins

    berselius:
    berselius,

    Speaking of, TIL that Octavio Dotel played for 13 teams (dying laughing)

    Octavio Dotel, Fernando Rodney, Edwin Jackson, and Kyle Farnsworth all played for a boatload of teams and are super useful in this game. I just don’t always remember who played for which teams.

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  62. BVS

    berselius,

    Might make some sense for the Pads to listen to offers on Machado and Darvish, considering their long term contracts that’ll provide no value in a few years.

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  66. Author
    Rice Cube

    As a reset, Cubs are 4 games back of the Reds (and a wild card spot), 5.5 games back of the Brewers for first place, with a 6 game cushion against the bottom dwellers, so here’s to a continuation of the win streak plus the other teams losing.

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  82. Author
    Rice Cube

    Rice Cube:
    The Wesneski/Smyly piggyback would’ve been even better had it not been for the mighty Nootbaar

    Having Nootbaar come up with the go-ahead run on base was not a fun AB but they managed not to disappoint

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