Why I am Now Eager for Jury Duty

 A close friend of mine was recently wronged in a terrible way by a scoundrel of a man and then afterward by our own legal system.

I'll speak with vagaries to protect the identities, but here's the gist.  My friend was taken advantage of by a pathological liar.  In order to seek justice, my friend took him to court.  The liar was caught committing perjury over a dozen times (literally) while on the stand , and was forced to admit many of his lies in open court, along with having broken contracts and lied to cover his tracks.

It seemed like an obvious, cut-and-dried case to prove and vote in favor of my friend.  But to everyone's astonishment, the jury sided with the liar.  And now my friend is stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of legal fees (including paying for the shyster's legal fees).

It is such a blatant miscarriage of justice, that it almost makes me sick.  How did 8 members of a jury come to such a conclusion?  Did any one of them have any moral fortitude?  Did any of them even care that this decision amounts to stealing from an innocent man the product of years' worth of labor?  It is so upsetting to see that such a thing could happen here in America.

I have never before been interested in getting on a jury.  But now I genuinely want to be summoned.  Even if I didn't know the plaintiff in this case, I wish I could've been on that jury.  I don't know what kind of bully tactics took place behind closed doors (or what kind of threats or bribes might've occurred during off-hours).  But I wish I could've been there and stood on principle.  I wish I could've helped to see that justice was done.

Ironically, I wonder if this blog post might someday disqualify me for jury duty...hmm...I'm still going to post it.

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