Today I had the privilege of participating in jury duty. As I was called two years ago and served a day, I knew what to expect. Both times I was in the selection pool but never sat for a trial. The last time I was in a courthouse was about a year ago, but that is unrelated.

The day started at 7:45 when I reported to the Orange County Superior Courthouse. I was one of about 150 prospective jurors. After we watched a short feel good video about jury duty, they parceled us out to different courtrooms.

From the pool of prospective jurors, people were called out and sent to specific rooms in groups around 50. In each courtroom the presiding judge gives a quick summary of the matter being tried. My case involved the taking of an automobile (it was only taking a vehicle with the intention of depriving the owner of its use, which I was told was not as bad as other vehicle thefts). Since it was a criminal case, they selected 12 people at random from the pool and 6 alternates to sit in the jury box. The judge had every prospective juror state their basic information and asked them case specific questions like their experience with car theft (from both sides). He also asked if anyone had a reason to distrust the police or any of the witnesses based on their language or ethnic background. The attorneys wrote themselves notes on Post-its about each of the jurors as they were questioned.

The judge also asked jurors if they understood different legal ideas. He used examples to explain concepts like hard v. circumstantial evidence and accessories to a crime. While the judge who presided over the case did use humor, his stories were not as enjoyable as the ones I heard from the judge during my previous service. The following example is from a Judge at the Westminster Courthouse I heard two years ago.

Possible v. Probable
Every Wednesday morning before coming to work I put my trash cans on the curb in front of my house. As I am pulling out of my driveway I see the garbage truck a few houses away picking up the neighbor’s trash. I never see the trash man empty my garbage cans, but every Wednesday I come home and find my cans as well as all the other ones on my street empty. Then I came home one Wednesday and a neighbor kid tells me my trash was not taken by the man in the garbage truck, but instead by aliens from Mars. Is it possible aliens from Mars took my trash? Yes. Is it probable the aliens took my trash? No.

Back to today, a number of people gave reasons why the current time was a bad time for them to serve on a jury. While some of the people’s excuses were legitimate, some were attempts to get out of serving on the case. The judge explained he could defer their service by a few weeks, but they would still be back in to serve. After realizing this, many of the people decided serving then was as good as later.

After the judge excused a few people, replacements were called to the jury box; I was one of them. After the defense and prosecution talked and questioned the jury for 15 minutes the action quickened. Each side could kick off 10 jurors for any reason. The little Post-its of the defense and prosecution then came in handy. They alternated rejecting people. There was no hesitation; both of them knew exactly who they wanted to kick off.

On its first or second opportunity, the prosecution kicked me off the jury. I was shocked and semi-offended. I think I would be the kind of disciplinarian who would send someone to the chair for stealing a bike. This happened last time two years ago; the prosecution kicked me off at the first chance. There is something prosecutors don’t like about me being on a jury. Maybe Physics and Classical Civilization are a secret code for I vote for acquittal.

After I was excused from the case I returned to the jury assembly room and they told me I was not needed anyone. I left at 2:30 in the afternoon.

During the day I remembered something Charles Wiley had said when he spoke on campus last year. When he was a young man during WW II, he was drafted into the executive branch and served for four years in the military. Today we are drafted into the judicial branch and asked to serve for a few days a year.

I hope we all respond to the call as our grandparents did.

I have been putting this off, but the blogroll needs to be updated. After Ben’s post yesterday that officially declared Calstuff in a state with zero or less writers following months of inactivity, the Berkeley blogsphere needs some good news.

If you have a unique perspective on things, start a blog.

The Daily Squelch is out there, bringing you SQUELCH! goodness on a daily basis.

Also, Bears Necessity has been active for a while. They actually link here, which is more then the Daily Clog can say.

Do you know of any vaguely Cal related blogs? Drop a link.

Last week the Berkeley City Council approved a measure that will extend the operating hours of businesses on Telegraph Ave. The exact details can be seen under Item 9 on the city council summary for last Tuesday.

A quick summary from ACCESS via Facebook post:

Under this package, businesses that do not serve alcohol are allowed to remain open from 7am to midnight on weekdays and from 7am to 2am on weekends. Businesses with an alcohol permit are allowed to remain open until 10pm on weekdays and midnight on weekends.

The most notable thing is the efforts students put into supporting this measure. For many months students have been lobbying the local government trying to extend Telegraph business hours. Leading the charge, the group ACCESS has been focusing action on this issue since last fall. I have received numerous messages from them asking me to write letters and attend city meetings.

There is also a lesson in leadership here. ACCESS achieved results because their members are truly concerned and dedicated to affecting local policies to directly help students. They had neither the huge budget nor the scores of interns the ASUC Office of External Affairs had, but they had persistence.

This is great for the businesses as well. They can be open longer without having to go through a lengthy permit process. Hopefully, the increased foot traffic on Telegraph later into the night will reduce crime and make everyone feel safer walking around later in the night.

It will be great to see the changes on Telegraph when school starts in the Fall.

The immigration bill is currently resting in the Senate, thought Harry Reid intends to revive it next week. There are a lot of problems with the bill, however some of the aspects are good, but I take more issue with how the debate is being presented. A lot of the discussion is missing some important points, and instead of continuing to yell at my TV, I’ll list a few.

As I said, the bill has some good amendments and some bad, but most of the border security and beaurocratic measures already exist, and aren’t enforced. This bill is adding good-intentioned layers of uselessness, and doesn’t target the real problem, which is that rules aren’t being enforced. Rather than spending the money this bill intends to fill social programs for the potential recipients of Z-visas, enforcement should be beefed up.

Along the lines of enforcement, there’s another point that’s been floating around that “we can’t round up and deport 12 million people” and it’s true, it would be a huge hassle. But we can enforce companies not hiring illegals by raising (and enforcing in every case, no exceptions) the fines. Also, if companies were forced to pay at least minimum wage there would be no incentive to continue hiring those who will “work for less”. If companies actually feared the consequence of hiring illegals, they would stop doing it, and there wouldnt be any jobs for illegals. Without recourse, the hope is that they would go home and try to re-enter legally. That’s just one way a little more enforcement could save us from spending a ton in “deportation”.

Another thing that bothers me is the discussion that this bill gives a provision so that “criminals” wouldn’t be able to get Z-visas. There’s a problem here with the illegals already in this country: because they’ve crossed our border, they are already criminals. They shouldn’t be rewarded for breaking the law with a visa. Those who are in line, waiting and abiding by the laws, should.

Also, there is no reason we as a country need to feel like it’s our duty to cater to illegal immigrants because they are “only looking for a better life”. They are absolutely looking for a better life, and I support giving asylum to people threatened by despotic governments, but the problem these people are escaping is not the US’s fault. The fault lies with Mexico, which is a country that is still developing and is going to encounter problems, but still has a duty to it’s people. If people were streaming from the US to another country, that should be a good indication of SOME kind of problem, right? Mexico has some issues that it needs to deal with, and of course we can help as a neighboring nation (and I’m not going to get into that now because there are all sorts of issues just within that statement). But the US and the American people are not beholden to immigrants; we are willing to help but not to hold their hand and we shouldn’t be expected to.

I hope you like my elementary analysis. Until next post!

Another partiotic pro-America post sure to piss off liberals and commenters alike. We are flying the flag today, albeit slightly incorrectly due to the lack of a proper flagpole holder, but I’m sure Old Glory will forgive us. Also, happy birthday to the US Army, which turns 232 today.

Days like today make me increasingly grateful to live in the US where I don’t have to worry about being killed by a rival political party, like in Gaza or Syria, or stoned to death because I want to wear a swim suit, like in Iran.

I just heard about the scandal over at Diablo Valley College, one of the many prominent junior colleges around the Bay Area. This Contra-Costa times article which was published in May confirms that as many as 400 poor grades were changed via the records department over three years in exchange for money, sometimes up to $600, and possibly also sexual favors. Bay Area junior colleges are big sources for transfer students at Cal, it is possible that some of your classmates may have been admitted based on lies and bribery. The scholastic world is continually more cutthroat, which drives students to break some legal and moral boundaries has been seen before by The Patriot, like in a May 2006 Patriot article on prostitution.

The fault lies with the students for not taking responsibility for their failures and for cheating, and it also lies with the administration for taking bribes and permitting the rules to be broken. Any DVC alumns with comments out there?

With the immigration bill dying (or maybe just resting?) in Washington right now, it’s time for some thoughts. Is this bill a good thing? Necessary? Too much? Not enough?

My view: as a compromise bill, no one is going to be completely happy. Also, with a leaky boat you patch the leaks first, right? Most of the measures I have heard of so far (and this thing is long, so that’s probably not much) would be great if they were enforced, but I see nothing to motivate a Republican or Democrat administration to actually enforce.

How ’bout you guys? What do you think?

Update: Due to a flood of public input, the resolution will not be introduced next week. See end of post.

From an article today in the San Francisco Examiner, a proposal is being worked on by Supervisor Chris Daly to stop the Blue Angels from flying over San Francisco. The popular Navy flying group has flown over the city for the past several years as part of Fleet Week, which will be October 4 to 9 this year.

From the Examiner:

Veterans for Peace takes issue with the pro-military message and the recruiting efforts that come along with the annual visit as well as what it refers to as the “noise pollution.” The group calls the event a public safety risk, pointing to the April crash of a Blue Angels plane during an air show in Beaufort, S.C.

What is wrong with a pro-military message? The flyover celebrates the skill and dedication of those serving in the Navy. If safety was truly a concern why was it not brought up years ago?

One anecdote that might illuminate the situation happened to me the other day. I was in a supermarket in Orange County wearing an Air Force related shirt. A gentleman asked if I was in the military and I replied that I was not but my Dad had served in the Army for over 20 years. He then asked me to thank him for his service. In contrast, I have heard comments around Berkeley calling those in uniform murders.

Fancy flying is not the only thing brought to the city. They also receive a healthy infusion of cash.

Fleet Week attracts about 1 million people to The City’s waterfront and sinks about $4 million into The City’s economy, according to Leonard. When the Blue Angels did not fly over San Francisco in 2004, attendance and revenue dropped by more than 50 percent, he said.

Leonard said Fleet Week comes with a variety of benefits, from boosting the local economy to providing people “a chance to say thanks for the people serving in the military now.”

I think a chance to say thanks to those serving in the military is reason enough for the festivities. While I have not been to any of these annual events in San Francisco, I do not see the harm that is being done by these flyovers. If the city really does not want the pro-military presence they can refrain from collecting sales tax during the week to avoid the risk of making money from a military related source.

I don’t know what the board of supervisors will do, but if it was my choice I would say thank you to those who are in service in the military. Then I would buy a crab sandwich and watch the Blue Angels.

Update:The day after the Examiner ran the story they had a follow up:

Supervisor Chris Daly, when asked about the progress of his resolution, told The Examiner on Thursday, “Because of you, I haven’t gotten any work done today, and because of you, I am not going to introduce it on Tuesday.”

I am glad public input is still valued. Check the Examiner for the latest details.