Thinking about guilt and shame I wanted to mention that last week I was summoned for grand jury duty to District Judge Michael Vigil's court. I was not at all opposed to serve and do my civic duty. In fact I had been trying to get on juries of mock courts for curiosity. A bit similar as when I applied at our seat of government, in walking distance of my home, to serve as secretary to two House Representatives for two legislative seasons. I was curious and wanted to understand the process more. We also had a surplus, oh those were the times, so there seemed to awaite plenty of excitement in dolling out the pork.
The day before I was to appear in court I walked by with my two pups in hopes of getting the scoop, the lay of the land so to say. It turned out that only 2 hours later Judge Vigil was threatened with his life by phone and the whole court had to shut down, including the near by school for safety measures. By the next morning they had already apprehended this 22 year old man from Chimayo, who had attempted to buy himself some more time from sentencing with his phone threat to our esteemed judge.
Emotions were running high at our assembly room. We learned that certain things were required of jury members, things that are not obvious to too many we were told. Like requests to not arrive late and most certainly not inebriated and not dressed inappropriately, (probably has mostly to do with skirt and neck lines, I assume.) Further leaving another in place was and still is not acceptable, but tried many times.
Well I was willing, eager and able but - got rejected, I learned by the choices of a computer system. It was decidedly not my looks or lack of education, since that Los Alamos scientist that invented some kinda important part for wind farms was also rejected. I felt really disappointed, but I know that I will get over this kind of rejection soon enough and as always, we never know to what good may come from any one ball thrown our way in the end.
