My Jury Duty Experience

So a couple of weeks ago, I reported to the Arizona Federal District Court for Jury Selection (apparently, I had not answered the questions on the questionairre in quite the right fashion to be disqualified from the case). This was my first Jury Duty stint, so I was curious how things worked. They started with about 60 of us, and I was on the first panel of 18 called up for questioning. I made a point of mentioning that I was an Engineer, thinking they would drop me for sure for that. Well, apparently that didn't work. I was chosen as one of the final 10 Jurors (which dropped to 8 by the end of the trial).

The case was a Civil Lawsuit (which you might have heard about in the news by now) in which illegal immigrants were suing a Douglass, AZ Rancher named Roger Barnett. The final claims by the plaintiffs dealt with violation of civil rights, false imprisonment, assault, battery, and infliction of emotional distress. It was rather interesting to me that the case was even in court, given the plaintiffs' legal status. However, the judge made clear from the beginning that we were not ruling on that. We were to focus souly on the "rules of law" that were to be given us at the end of the closing arguments. Here is a link to an article about the case: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/18/rancher-cleared-in-rights-case/

It has been interesting to me to read about what is in the news about the case and compare it with what was actually presented in court. It kind of makes me think twice about judging a court case based on a reporter's article. This case was difficult in that there were very few "hard facts." Everything was based on testimony, which was always conflicting, right down to the location of the incident. Most articles I've read just assume the incident occured on the Rancher's land. There was no conclusive evidence even of that (though there were questions we the Jury were just itching to ask certain witnesses that would have shed more light on the subject).

Here are a few of my "lessons learned:"
- The 6th floor of the Evo A de Concini Courthouse has free wireless internet, but the Jury Deliberation room on the 5th floor does NOT.
- How good your lawyer is makes a big difference
- Lawyers do have a pretty tough job sometimes (but the jokes about them are still all true)
- The current method of border control is completely inadequate (all of the illegal aliens testified that they basically had no fear of getting caught by Border Patrol - just inconvenient that they would have to try again. It almost made it sound like a game)
- It alerted me of new terminology to use in arguments: "Objection, foundation", "Objection, assumes facts not in evidence", "Objection, argumentative", and "Objection, asked and answered."
- Court recorders are amazing. I don't know how they keep up.
- Now I know where to go for topographical maps - across the street from the courthouse.
- Downtown Tucson traffic is a pain at 5 p.m. I'm glad I don't have to deal with it.

Cinder-Kiersten

So many of you may know that Kiersten has been having a problem with picking up her toys - she doesn't want to! Right before Christmas we tried "toy time-out," where everything we had to pick up went into the garage for a week. As soon as she realized that her toys weren't going in the trash, and that we were going to pick them up she didn't care how long they stayed in the garage. In fact, some things have been in the garage for the last 3 months and she doesn't care. So last week I tried another version of "toy time-out" - she now has to do a job for each thing she wants to get out of toy time out. So far the only things she's been motivated to get out are birthday presents for her friends, the morning of the party! The first morning I had her washing some of Tanner's toys in the sink and all of sudden she says to me, "Mom, look! I'm like Cinderella. I have to do lots of jobs like she does!" Two days later when she was ready for the other birthday present I had her dust the baseboards in the hallway. She refused to take off her Cinderella dress while she worked. I guess because she has to do jobs like Cinderella, she needs to dress like Cinderella! Unfortunately I haven't been able to get her to jobs to get things like her shoes out of time out - she always chooses to wear different shoes rather than do an extra job!

Tanner's Pictures

Since Tanner is about to turn 8 months old, and I haven't been nearly as good about getting his picture taken as I was with Kiersten, I took him in to get pictures taken this week. (Ok, what really got me moving was that I had already taken the most recent one of the wall and scrapbooked it, and I needed to get something on the wall to replace it!) I thought they turned out pretty cute. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Mom's Job

So the other day I'd taken Kiersten and Tanner out to run errands so Nate could get some work done in the back yard. When we got home, I noticed that Nate had tracked dirt, rocks and leaves all through the tile hallway that runs from the backyard to the garage. I pointed it out to Nate and he felt really bad because he hadn't even noticed it and got the broom and started sweeping. When Kiersten saw him sweeping she got this really worried look on her face and told him that sweeping is Mom's job and that Mom is the only one who can sweep. Nate tried to explain that he was cleaning up a mess that he had made, just like she is supposed to clean up the messes she makes. No matter what Nate said, Kiersten always shook her head and said, "No, Daddy. Sweeping is Mom's job. Only Mom is supposed to sweep." I guess my children really do think I'm the maid in the house!

So grown up!

I can't believe Kiersten started Sunbeams! It doesn't feel like it was that long ago that she was starting Nursery, and crying all through singing time because she thought she had to take a nap!

Of course, now that she's a Sunbeam, she thinks she's got everything figured out. The other day I was explaining that we couldn't have dessert for lunch (or something) because Mommy's tummy needed to get smaller. She told me that I just needed to take small bites, because she takes small bites and she has a small tummy. Well, there you have it - they key to weight loss: take small bites!

A Few of Tanner's Firsts

It's a new year, and we have at last given in to all of the peer pressure and started a blog! Who knows how often it will get updated, but we will at least give it a try.

Over the past week or two, Tanner has had quite a few firsts. He has started to sit up on his own. He ate his first cracker. And he has taken the first steps to crawling. We have found that he especially likes to go after plastic packaging material. Here are a few pics.

Tanner in the High Chair

Kiersten enjoying the snow