Reverse Decision

Many of you know that I am one of twelve people in this country who don't start making up excuses when the jury summons comes in the mail. Maybe because of that I get called to serve with amazing regularity.
And it was my turn again on this April.
But this was the weirdest turn at the courthouse I have ever had.
I showed up the first day, just like usual and we got the lame orientation speech, complete with jokes no one laughs at, as usual. They called the first panel and I was on it, as usual.
Then it became not usual.
We met one of the courthouse employees in the hallway where we were given a piece of paper with our instructions to return for the jury selection process.
In two weeks.
So I waited two weeks, through Tarzan's spring break, trips to my parents' house and came on the 24th as instructed. That was a Monday. The judge - in a manner that was WAY too chipper - told us it was a murder case we were being selected for and, AND! the death penalty was a possible outcome. We were given a thirty 30! page questionnaire to fill out, mostly about our stance on capitol punishment and then we were told to come back on Friday of that week. We were to learn later that there were two panels of 75 people each they were pulling from - and the judge had other cases she was hearing - so we were only getting 35% of her attention.
My situation is such that these weird schedulings were only inconvenient but there were others in the group who were getting a lot of flak from their bosses - who were paying for their jury service - and it made for irritable jurors in the hallway. Especially when buses were late or broken and we had to wait over an hour for people to arrive. People who didn't call to explain to the judge why they weren't coming. Which made the bailiff - who was adorable and I may have developed a slight crush on - exasperated as he had to try and find these latecomers. (The rule is we can't start anything in court unless everyone is there.)
On top of that, on Friday, first the judge and then the lawyers for both sides got a crack at us, individually and as a group and the whiplash from the defense attorney's jokes, quips and attempts to be all nicey-nicey and friendly to the District Attorney who was anything but, left me feeling very tired and anxious, something I have never been before when jury duty was involved. The day's events left me with a distinct icky feeling towards the defense attorneys and genuine respect for the People's lawyers which surprised me. The judge dismissed us early that day - apparently she was tired and cranky too.
We were to come back on Tuesday, which was today.
Now, I didn't want to be a juror for this case. It wasn't quick or easy - as other cases had been - and the descriptions of the evidence was not making me want to become involved. The D.A., though I respected him for his approach to the possible outcome of the case, made me take a closer look at my own views on capitol punishment - I had always been in favor of it, I'm big on justice - and it's a lot more complicated and a much harder decision than I had thought it would be. I wasn't sure I could do it.
With all the discussion and questions we had had earlier it wasn't supposed to take long to select the twelve jurors and two alternates and when they called me to sit in the jury box I figured that was it. Never have I been called to sit in one of the twelve seats and then been dismissed. If I sit there, I am on the panel, so I resigned myself to four weeks of testimony and evidence and then a long and possibly hard decision in the deliberation room.
And then the prosecution said I was thanked and excused.
I don't think it's vanity to say I was a little stunned. I thought the prosecution like me. It never occurred to me to lie when an attorney asked a question and I think I answered them all firmly and with resolution. I could understand that the defense wouldn't have wanted me to stay. The man - a white man - was accused of killing his wife - a white woman - for financial gain. But the prosecution should have wanted me to stay.
I'm not supposed to speculate as to why they didn't keep me on the jury but I did feel slightly let down as I waited for the elevator back to the jury assembly room. Which is weird because I didn't want to serve at all and then when I couldn't I wanted to.
Like I said, a very different jury service process this time around.

This is me, oddly regretful.