A continuation of Law & Order It Was Not part 1 and part 2.

The jury box was awesome. The seats were like extra cushiony Captain Kirk chairs, and just like his, they swiveled, too. Not like Law & Order at all. We were allowed to sit wherever, there was no assignment, and then the judge had us take an oath. We were sent to the jury room through a side door shortly after, which was located off the long corridor behind the courtroom.

Once we entered what seemed like a tiny room for twelve individuals, we each took a seat along the wall or at the table and began to size one another up, as you do. Nobody said much as we waited for directions. The bailiff eventually entered in and gave us our juror credentials that were meant to be worn at all times so attorneys and clients would be sure not to engage with us outside of the courtroom.  We all thought we’d be dismissed for the day so the trial could begin on Tuesday, but not ten minutes later they had us back in the jury box listening to opening statements. It was awesome.

The opening statements were definitely not as impassioned as Jack McCoy’s (for the record, the closing arguments weren’t either). After the opening statements, the plaintiff took the stand. I won’t go into all of the details of the case, because though I found every little detail of it ridiculously interesting, you likely will not. Probably one of those “had to be there” moments, so I’ll offer a quick gist.

Essentially there was a car accident in 2013 less than two miles from my house. The defendant was cited for it by the officer that appeared after the scene and the plaintiff was looking for money from the defendant to pay for her chiropractic bills, some MRIs, a few other medical related items and for pain and suffering. The judge even admitted he was hoping to have us out of there by Tuesday afternoon because it should be a pretty quick case.

By the end of the day on Monday we had heard the majority of the plaintiff’s testimony and were dismissed a bit early because the judge had an appointment for his broken leg across the street. We headed back to the jury room to get our things and had already been instructed by the judge not to discuss the case with anyone, not even other members of the jury.

I will say this about the first day – after the prosecutor finished with the plaintiff, it was slowly getting hard to believe just about anything that emerged from the plaintiff’s mouth. She discredited herself repeatedly. By the time the defense attorney stepped up to the plate, it was seemingly all over because though the attorney didn’t get to finish by the time we had to break, she was a firecracker who knew her stuff, and she went line item by line item poking holes in everything the plaintiff had declared on the stand.  I was waiting for the call that there would be no need to come in on Tuesday morning because they’d settled outside of court. If I was the plaintiff, that’s what I would have tried desperately to do. Found out Tuesday morning in the jury room, that EVERYONE thought the same thing.

We were nine women and three men. It was a very culturally and racially diverse bunch that had been culled from a predominantly white suburban county. I was pretty impressed actually. I felt like it represented our American  Melting Pot pretty well. Maybe another guy or two could have evened things out, but both the defendant and the plaintiff were women so no surprise there.

Since the jury wasn’t allowed to discuss the case, and we had a lot of waiting to do at different times throughout the day, we bonded over television, movies, celebrity gossip and popular culture. These were my kind of people. We looked up images and facts of certain celebs, putting together timelines, trying to determine if plastic surgery rumors were true. We tried to deduce where certain shows or movies had been filmed based off of certain shots without using IMDb. We even analyzed the oversaturation of the superhero market to figure out when it will hit full saturation. I mean once you’re put on the Perry Mason path, it’s kind of hard to deviate. We sleuthed everything we could while in our holding patterns. Everyone was genuinely nice and got along like aces.

We heard more testimony on Tuesday. We heard from the officer who had written the citation. We heard from the plaintiff’s husband and from the defendant, too.  Once that was all said and done, it was time for closing arguments. Like I said before, not quite as impassioned as Mr. McCoy, but a power point presentation and an emphasis on the law were perfectly acceptable closings for what they were.

We were charged by the judge to determine who was at fault, at what percentage they were at fault, and how much money should be awarded, if any, to the plaintiff. And if the plaintiff was found 50% or more at fault, no money could be awarded at all.  After the charge, we were sent back to the jury room to deliberate a verdict. We had maybe forty-five minutes till the end of the day. We were all in pretty close to agreement when we first sat down, but the wonders that talking things through will do.

to be continued…

As I stated previously, Law & Order it was not. 12 Angry Men it wasn’t either. More like nine women and three men with quite jovial dispositions, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Jury Selection …

The jury pool has its own designated parking area. This was exciting. The Cobb County Court System was so appreciative of our service that it deemed we deserved our very own parking locale. All we needed to do was wave our little summons at the attendant when pulling into the car park and then he would direct us to where our special little spot would be. It was on the 5^th floor of the parking deck as a matter of fact. One might call it the Penthouse of that particular parking garage with spectacular city views … others might just refer to it as uncovered parking in the nosebleed section wherein our cars can cook in the 100 degree heat.

Upon entering the courthouse and going through security, we were required to check in on the top floor. They scanned our summons and we were directed to the Jury Waiting room for orientation.

After the orientation we were guided to a courtroom. It did not look like a Jack McCoy courtroom. It felt very 80’s 700 Club with the colors, the carpet and the cushion covers. My heart sank a little. After a little Q&A, the chief justice swore us in, assigned us a group and then we were good to go. We would be sent back up to the Jury Waiting room where we could watch TV, relax or mingle until our group was called for a case. Everyone was constantly thanking us for our service and reminding us of how the mere knowledge of our presence was enough to conclude many cases. We were told summer was the best time to serve. Far less cases and they never started new ones on Fridays, so though we were technically in service for the whole week and could technically be placed in multiple juries, the likelihood would be slim and most of us stood a solid chance of being released by noon each day.

I felt like I had just cracked open THE BOOK, when the jury manager took center stage and called Group 2 to attention. I was Group 2. But what happened to Group 1? Regardless, we were required to exit the room single file in the order we were called. The bailiff, who was not wearing a uniform of any kind by the way, counted off.  I was juror 20. We were then taken to a courtroom on the third floor to enter voir dire.

We were asked to sit in the audience area, or the gallery, with ten in the first two rows and the remaining four in the third. The prosecution and the defense teams, along with their clients, were turned around facing all of us. Never saw that on Law & Order.  Felt like fish in a bowl, or barrel depending on your point of view. The judge hobbled in with crutches, board shorts, a polo and his robe wide open. Never saw that either. He welcomed us and thanked us and essentially let voir dire begin.

The prosecutor stepped to the podium first. He aimed to be personable, maybe cracked a joke or two, I can’t quite recall. He reminded me a bit of Stephen Baldwin circa The Usual Suspects (not Bio-Dome); then he began to ask the hard hitting questions. The first one was whether or not anyone had ever witnessed an accident at a specific crossroads in the city. Just so you know, Marietta is a substantial and very wide-spread city, so it wouldn’t have been a shock if no one had seen said crossroads, let alone witnessed an accident there, but you know my luck. I looked around and slowly raised my hand. I was the only one. I was asked to stand and explain myself, so I did. With the looks on both parties’ faces, pretty sure they weren’t going to want me after that.

He continued on. The next question was if anyone lived within a two mile radius of said crossroads. I looked around and raised my hand. I was the only one.  I stood up and explained roughly where I lived. Each chair looked at their co-counsel and yep, I was most definitely not making this jury.

He asked various other questions that reached multiple jurors. Then he asked if any of our family members have ever worked for an insurance company. I looked around and raised my hand. I was the only one.  I think the prosecutor may have even rolled his eyes and the defense looked just as unsurprised. I stood to answer his additional questions.

Prosecutor: So you have a family member who has worked for an insurance company?

Me: Yes, sir. My sister worked for one, but she lived in Chicago at the time. She lives in Colorado now and it’s been like 7-10 years.

Prosecutor: Do you know which insurance company?

Me: No, sir.

Prosecutor: Do you know what she did for the insurance company?

Me: Well … she was an attorney (that got everyone’s attention, including the judge who till this moment looked like he was possibly playing an intense game of Angry Birds on his cell phone behind the bench), but I don’t know exactly what she did …

At this point, I was SO not on this jury I don’t know why they didn’t just let me leave. In fact, the defense immediately stood up and asked permission to approach. They all conferred, looked at me, and then finally the prosecutor came back thanking me and letting me take my seat once again.

More questions came and went. I was never again a lone juror answering direct questions. When it was all said and done, the judge gave the attorneys and their co-counsel 15 minutes to deliberate and pick their jury. Again, nothing like Law & Order, My Cousin Vinny, Runaway Jury, or any other jury selection I’ve seen depicted on the big or small screen. They were given 24 people to choose from and that was that.

The prosecution and the defense turned in their choices. The judge looked things over, nodded, and addressed the group sitting in the gallery. He said if he called our name, to please stand and when directed, take a seat in the jury box.

Of course my name was called.

to be continued…

Her court was in a small town in North Georgia, population hovering near 10,000 with a reputation for being pretty petty. She called telling me all about how backwards they were, the inappropriate attire of the attendees, the gossipy nature of her fellow offenders, you know, basically the small townness of it all. I had to laugh at that because no matter how bad and backwards she thought it was, nothing could compare to Clifford’s and my experience in Metter.

Metter is a known speed trap in Georgia. It sits about an hour outside of Savannah and when Clifford and I were in school, we had to drive through it every time we went to Atlanta to visit his folks. Of course we knew it was an infamous speed trap area. The fines were typically doubled or more and they showed no mercy so we were always careful to be hovering right at the speed limit as we breezed through the beginnings of good old Candler County (man that sounds so Dukes of Hazzard in my head).

Anyway, it was 1999 and we were headed up to Atlanta for something. We typically waited till classes were finished on a Thursday evening and drove during the night. Far less traffic that way. We headed out and were approaching the area we knew embraced the speed trappings of Metter. Clifford slowed down and set his cruise control right around the limit just to be safe. We were all good till we approached a semi up ahead. The semi was going the speed limit, too, maybe fluctuating a bit above and below which is how we were able to catch him. We weren’t going quite fast enough to pass him though. (reminds me of US 6 back near Nappanee. Two lane area where the trucks hover right at 54mph in a 55 and it’s just busy enough you can’t quite pass… that’s a special kind of hell when your thisclose to being home)

Being stuck behind the truck shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. We were just waiting till we were through Metter to pick up the pace, but then we watched as the semi began to swerve to and fro. I don’t know if the trucker was tired, had a few too many or what, but he was becoming more and more of a threat to our safety, particularly with us right behind him.

So Clifford did what he had to do. When the guy swerved back right, Clifford took the opportunity to speed up and pass him on the left. Of course just as he settles back in front of the truck, lowering back to his original speed, we hear the sirens and see the lights. Now don’t get me wrong, Clifford was a speed demon back in the day and there are many many instances where he probably should have been thrown in the back of a paddy wagon and not just given a ticket and a fine. This, however, was not one of those instances.

We sighed and he pulled over. True to form, what was a stereotypical backwoods Georgia cop in my Hoosier mind (I was still pretty new to the state), approached. He was a jackass through and through. Clifford tried to explain about the semi , but he maintained the jackass parameters he set for himself from the beginnings of our unexpected and unfortunate middle-of-the-night highway rendezvous.

Once he saw he wasn’t getting anywhere, Clifford accepted the ticket and we carried on our way. We eventually looked more closely at the ticket, as we were going to need to call in about a week to find out the cost of the fine when we saw Clifford had been clocked at 13 over and the jackass cop marked that there were wet roads and bad weather conditions. NOT TRUE!!! It had rained earlier in the day, sure, but by the time we were making our way through the Metter area, the moon was out, the stars were bright and the roads were dry. When we found out the fine for Clifford’s infraction was going to be a whopping $386, that’s when Clifford decided to go to the mattresses. We were going to go to court, I as his witness, and explain what happened. It was only an hour away. We could miss a class. $386 on a good day is too much money to ignore, let alone when you’re a college kid barely scraping by.

The court date had arrived. Clifford donned his best suit and I a professional blouse and skirt combo. We were going to be clean, courteous and respectfully object to the erroneous claims the cop made on the ticket.

Clifford was big talk all the way there.

“Hell no are they making me pay this.”

“I’m going to tell that judge exactly what happened.”

“They can shove their fine up their asses because this is bullshit and I’m going to tell them so.”

He went on and on like that all the way to the courthouse exit off I-16. He emerged from the exit onto what appeared to be the town’s Main Street or what led to the town’s Main Street. Little Sis was complaining about her “small town” and what went with it, but Metter back in 1999 had a population of around 4,000. This wasn’t going to be good.

I stared out the window as Clifford followed our printed MapQuest directions. It was like we’d entered the Twilight Zone. We were literally in Mayberry, but a Mayberry where Andy Griffith was more like a Little Children’s Jackie Earle Haley and Deputy Fife wasn’t just a buffoon but a racist redneck buffoon.  People were staring at us from the street because they just knew Clifford’s Saturn didn’t belong.

As we entered the courthouse and looked around, we saw people in wife-beaters who hadn’t showered in days, one person without shoes, a teenager who was pregnant standing next to her barely pubescent boyfriend and their parents (maybe getting married?), a few people who looked like courthouse commoners, and several  nods between the cops, the security guards, the clerks, the lawyers, etc. throwing out greetings in the most Southern of drawls such as, “Morn’n Clyde.” A nod and a tip of the hat in response with, “Ellen Sue.” I would love to be making this up, but even I’m not that imaginative. I have never heard so many Billy Joes, Billy Bobs and other two-first-named individuals sharing salutations and skulking in one place.  Clifford and I looked like we walked in from Wall Street in comparison. Yeah, this was so not going to be good.

We took a seat in the courtroom as instructed, waiting to be called. Our designated time came and went as we simply watched case after case go before the judge. Pretty much everyone in the courtroom from the lawyers to the judge to the stenographer to those accused of a crime were all on a first name basis (two-named first name basis). It was unreal. Maybe the spittoon the cops were treating like a water cooler in the corner as they spat their tobacco and the day’s gossip back and forth should have been the foreshadowing we needed to just get the hell out of there but for whatever delusional reason, we remained. Clifford insisted he was going to fight the system as he was a wronged man and would receive his justice. That boy was so so naïve.

Shortly before Clifford was called, a frail 80 year old woman with coke bottle glasses and the sweetest little grandma dress weakly worked her way in front of the judge. They said she was clocked going 140 mph in a 65. Clifford and I did a double take. Surely they said 104mph, which was still totally ridiculous. Nope, 140mph. Apparently grandma fell asleep at the wheel which caused a bit of a lead foot. We were speechless. The judge was really nice, knocked a bunch of charges down or off her record completely, no jail time and a fine roughly around what Clifford’s was for 13 over. Wow.  Maybe Clifford had this after all.

Finally, after 4 hours in a fairly empty courtroom, Clifford was called before the judge. He whispered, “This is it. I’m seriously going to let them have it. And you can back me up.” I just smiled and squeezed his hand before he left our bench and headed towards the front of the room. He stood up straight and yes sir’d and mam’d the right people on his way there. I was proud of him. He was about to be my hero. If some grandma going 140mph got reduced to basically a fine the size of his, maybe Cliff could walk away with just a warning once all the facts were on the table.

Clifford listened carefully as the judge read through his report. After listening to him for hours drone on about what he was going to say and the argument he was going to make, I was ready to see him in action. I could barely hear a thing though. Damn my deafness! I was leaning in and the judge was asking Clifford something. I couldn’t hear what it was, but his tone was definitely not the one grandma received. I heard, “Yes, Sir.” Another question then, “Yes, Sir.” One more question, “Yes, Sir.” Then the judge closed the file, said something to Clifford pointing towards the exit on the right of the room and which had Clifford responding with, “Thank you, Sir.” and a nod.

What just happened? Did my boyfriend essentially just bend over in front of the judge saying the equivalent of, “Please, Sir, may I have some more?” because THAT’S what it looked like.

Clifford looked at me and nodded to the right. I saw him heading towards the exit the judge had pointed out, so I grabbed our things and left the way we’d come in. I assumed Clifford was going to meet me out front, you know, to celebrate the victory he just claimed, because that better be what had just happened.

Alas, I exited the courtroom to see Clifford down the hall paying the cashier. For all his bravado, we had taken off school, driven an hour out of our way to the most Podunk town we will likely ever visit, and all for Clifford spinelessly, yet graciously, accepting an outrageous fine of $386. Little Sis didn’t have it quite so bad.

The village looks like something out of Heidi. Well, an American touristy version of what Heidi’s village should look.

Oh, Heidi! WIR LIEBEN DICH!

German inspired, tourism with a capital T. But the cheese is what makes it so great!

A rough Hansel and Gretel getting their beer on.

My partner lost his head over all the German kitsch.

Other than grabbing some schnitzel, potato salad, and a funnel cake, my sisters and I had plans to go tubing down the Chattahoochee.

Since it was the end of May, we  knew the water was going to be pretty chilly. But we were going for it anyway, though there was one tiny little issue – the water level was SO low.

That said, we started on the outskirts of town and got going pretty easily. And yes it was cold. If you’ve never been, you have to try tubing at least once in your life. Sitting back, catching some rays, being carried by the rushing water … it’s one of the best experiences you can have. A group in front of us had the stellar idea to rent an extra tube just to hold their beer cooler as they rode down the river. I did say Redneck, right? Redneck and brilliant.

It was a lot of fun. We were one with nature, way better than those lazy rivers at some Floridian resort…till things got rocky. Like literally rocky.  Remember how I said the water was SO low? Well, as we approached the area where the river runs through the town, we began to slow to a crawl  because the water was getting so shallow. Then the river became a trickle and finally not even a trickle at all. We were stuck.

Best part? We were right in the middle of the downtown area near one of the bridges trapped like deer in headlights.  All of the tourists eating their lunches and passing by could just sit or stand and stare as if we were the latest Deutsch town attraction on display for their viewing pleasure.

We smiled awkwardly. We likely waved, but I remember feeling very exposed as we struggled with what to do. We saw that the groups of tubers near us had sticks and were able to work their way through the rocky water-free zone to freedom. So of course we stepped out of our tubes to grab sticks, too. Any sticks at this point since the entire community was watching and laughing at us lovely ladies trying to backwoods engineer our way out of dry land and onto what should have been a gushing body of water that would carry us along our merry way.

We worked it out somehow. We eventually finagled our way out of the dry depths of the rocky river bed and back to the charging Chattahoochee of our dreams. A cheeseball tourist town + a terribly rough ride = a time I would totally repeat.

Have you ridden down the Chattahoochee? Any great tubing stories? Share them below!