During the first week of 2008, we weathered illness, jury duty, and deadlines. While Chris worked round the clock, I tended to Riley, who was home from school with a bad cold and high fever. That turned into an ear infection, just as I began jury duty.
Los Angeles has a one day, one trial jury duty system. You either complete one day of service in the jury pool or you complete one trial. For most people, the goal is to avoid selection for a trial. On my first day in the jury pool, I was told to report to a courtroom where a jury was being selected for a criminal trial. It was an interesting case, and one in which I wouldn't have minded serving as a juror. The defendant was charged with attempted murder of a female deputy sheriff with a razor while in custody at the county jail. He plead not guilty. During voir dire (the process during which prospective jurors are questioned by the judge and the attorneys), defense counsel implied that his client is mentally ill and may have been hallucinating when he attacked the officer.
After spending a day and a half in the gallery, I was excused from service. During that time, the questions asked of other prospective jurors provided an interesting opportunity to study a cross section of the local population. A lot of the questions addressed possible bias, either in favor of or against, law enforcement. The judge and attorneys asked questions about the jurors' past experiences with crime (either affecting them personally or someone close to them), whether they or anyone close to them had been arrested, and whether any of them had bad experiences with law enforcement.
The majority of the jury pool had not personally been a victim of crime, but many of them knew someone who had been a victim, including several who had had a family member murdered. The majority also had not been arrested, but many knew someone who had been--most of those arrests (personal or friends/family) were DUI related.
One young woman's family had quite the checkered past -- two uncles who had served time, another one she had never met because he was serving a life sentence, and a step father who was also serving a life sentence. She, herself, was in the second year of her medical internship. I thought, given her background, she must have faced an uphill battle to begin her career path and admired her for making that effort.
Another young man gave unintentionally comic answers. He volunteered that he had a negative opinion of law enforcement because his dorm room at Arizona State University had been searched without his consent "simply because there was supposedly a cloud of marijuana smoke outside the door." Sometime later, he volunteered that he had been arrested for possession of a gram of marijuana in his dorm room. He indignantly stated that he thought that was ridiculous and the law should be changed, especially since possessing even as little as an ounce of marijuana is chargeable as a felony in Arizona.
Today, I am back at work for the first full day in a week, Chris met his most urgent deadline, and Riley is on antibiotics and is enjoying "Sharing Day" at school. (Imagine what he could have shared last week!)
This photo is for my parents. The building at the far left is the Holiday Inn on Colorado where you will be staying during your visit. This picture was taken from the Sierra Madre Villa Metro station, looking south. Below is the view from the station looking north. These are intended to give you a general idea of the hotel's surroundings (set back off a commercial corridor) and proximity to the train. The train station sits in the middle of the freeway. 
