Daily Archives: July 28, 2016
Not Again . . .
For the 4th time since we started full-timing in 2008, and became South Dakota residents, Harris County, Texas has sent me a jury summons.
So I guess for the 4th time, I’ll have to contact the Court and explain to them once again, that although we still own a house in Harris County, we haven’t lived here in 8 years.
Now in the past, I’ve never tried to get out of jury duty, well except the time it come up in the middle of Shuttle mission, and in fact over the years I think I’ve ended up on 4 or 5 juries out of maybe 8 to 10 times I’ve been called.
In Harris County, unlike a lot of places, they just get one shot at you. You’ll called in on a certain date, and if you don’t get picked for a jury, you’re done.
You’re called in for either the morning session (8am) or the afternoon session (1pm). Afternoons are better because to get there by 8am,you need to leave the Clear Lake area by about 5:30 if you want to find a parking space anywhere near the Courthouse. And as you all know, I’m not really a happy early riser.
But I have been on some interesting cases – a crack house murder (12 – 0 guilty), a cocaine possession (11 –1 innocent/mistrial), and a civil suit against an apartment complex whose hot water was supposedly so hot, it burned a baby being bathed in a bathroom lavatory.
This was a interesting case due to the particulars. A family was suing because they said a 6 month old baby received 2nd degree burns when the hot water was turned on in the lavatory where he was being bathed, and instantly scalded.
The defense produced pages of complaints from people about lukewarm hot water in this apartment building because it was at the far end from the central water heater system.
And as far as the burns, the baby had burns on his lower back, bottom, and the back of his thighs. Not on his stomach, crotch, or upper thighs like if he were burned from the faucet being turned on while he was in the lavatory.
During the course of the trial, it was discovered that the baby’s 12 year old cousin who was bathing him with no adults in the home, had just put water in the lavatory and set the baby in. Then she went off to watch TV for 30 to 45 minutes. The cousin said the baby was crying, but he always cried, so she didn’t pay any attention.
As it turns out a baby can get 2nd degree burns after 30 minutes in 105° water, cooler than most people would find comfortable. Another thing that was really telling was the fact that if you folded the baby up like you were sitting him in a small lavatory, the burn mark was a straight line across his body, following the water level in the sink.
I was the foreman on this trial, as I have been on several others. And what I normally do, if everyone is agreeable, is to ask for a show of hands, guilty or not guilty. Then if we don’t have a consensus, we start talking it over, going around the table, letting each juror have their say, hashing it out back and forth until we all agree, or don’t as the case may be.
And in this case, like the crack house murder, we all agreed on the first vote. (12 – 0 for the defendant).
And as with the murder, it took us longer to fill out all the paperwork and for everyone to sign off on it, than it did to decide the case.
Tomorrow we’re going to Katy to have dinner with Brandi, et. al. and pick up our Amazon stuff. Then on our way home we’ll stop at the Wal-Mart in Sealy for our prescriptions we called in today, and a few other things.
Thought for the Day:
I Saw That – Karma (That fate thing. Not our cat.)
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