Off the Hook

Just got the call- I am excused and don’t need to report for jury selection on Monday. I’m curious about the case now, so will be paying attention to what happens with it. Selection was for State of New Jersey vs. George Jenewicz, what I now know (because I can look it up) is a new trial after the State Supreme Court overturned a conviction from 2002. The alleged murder happened in 1998. I wasn’t the only person in the room wondering about the 10 years that have passed… some voiced their question out loud. I did hear 2 women behind me talking, one telling the other that there is no death penalty in NJ, so she didn’t need to worry about that. I guess that’s a new thing because in the information I’ve seen since, capital punishment was an option at the time of the original trial. So apparently this man was originally convicted, but the conviction was (in January this year) overturned due to trial errors.

From the charges as the judge read them and the inferrences from the questionnaire, this sounded like a case that could have been on CSI or Bones (what with the dismemberment part and all).

For anyone interested, here’s some articles on the case. Would be interesting to be part of the process, but glad I don’t have to listen to stories or look at pictures of this crime scene.

Article on January Supreme Court Overturn
An article linked from the first
Another article linked from the first
Some NJ Court opinions (search page) on or referring to the Jenewicz trials

Due Process

I got my first summons for jury duty about a month ago and had to report today. Coincidentally, just before receiving the summons I was part of a conversation about the jury rooms in several nearby counties. After seeing the one I get to sit in… I’m a bit jealous of those in other counties. I heard that Somerset’s recently renovated jury room is in an old church. There’s a TV in one corner, plenty of reading material, coffee/refreshments, and comfy chairs. My memory of this may be a bit skewed as I think of what would be really nice for a jury room.. that was not present in ours.

I was in a white walled room with several square pillars and one big round one. The chairs were at least comfortable, but similar to those in airports. Four vending machines were available (do they let you go out for lunch?? I don’t know, no one explained that). And I didn’t have time to eat breakfast. Swell.

Once we sat around for an hour and a half, the judge came in to talk to us. Finally it started getting interesting. I figured if nothing else there would be a ‘Welcome, this is how the day is going to work’ message within the first 20-30 minutes, but no.

Today we all were there for jury selection for a specific trial (rather than the 1 day or 1 trial verbage). We listened to the charges, then filled out a (long) questionnaire. The involved parties, attorneys and who-not, will use those questionnaires to excuse some people. Those who are excused will get a phone call telling them so. Everyone else has to go back on Monday when they will call us in to question us in person about our views, backgrounds, experiences.

From the information we were given, I can’t see any reason I’d be excused based on my questionnaire. We’ll see if I get a call. If not, then Monday they narrow down to 16 (12 + 4 alternates) to serve for the estimated 2.5 week trial.

Of course I can’t discuss the case itself, but the charges sounded like the synopsis for an evening drama.

The Birds

“Oh please, not again!” I whispered, thus beginning this weekend’s adventures. The ‘not again’ refers to this.

I was so intent on getting past that episode that I never finished that story.

The scratching we heard 15 minutes later did result in said bird returning to the laundry room either that night or sometime the next day. In the morning we checked the bread pan and found it empty and didn’t hear anything, so we went on to work. Upon returning home it seemed the thing hurt itself getting out of our bread pan trap (or in the following freaking-out it did). We tried opening the patio door, closing all other doors in the house and just letting it come out on its own, but it never did– then it got to dusk so it wouldn’t have the light to lead it out anymore. We tried capture methods as finally worked the night before, but it apparently remembered this and was scared out of its mind. We left it alone in the room with the light off in an attempt to calm it down, but it continued to flap around, running into ceiling, walls, door, anything it could. The poor thing was really going to hurt itself, so we decided we had to get it out ourselves. We employed similar broom and bird net techniques from the previous night’s exercises and managed to catch it and get it out, noting as we did so that it was bleeding. It flew across the street and landed in the grass and just sat there.

Upon returning to our laundry room (at this point it’s pretty sparse as we’d removed everything we could so it wouldn’t have to be cleaned again), we noticed the spots on the door. Then looking further, on the walls, the ceiling, the washer and dryer… everywhere. Not just bird poop (that was there, too, but was to be expected), but blood. It had bludgeoned itself trying to find a way out. This is unbelievably sad to me, but I really don’t know what else we could have done.

At some point either that day or the next, the chimney was fixed, so we had no more birds. It took a long time to clean all the walls and the door- even now a year later you can see where we had to scrub the paint to get the blood off.

So a recap:

2006
June 21 I hear something
June 26 Bird #1- dead
July 2 Bird #2-alive
July 3 call to Association re:birds
July 10 call to Landlord (prob should have done this sooner) and Bird #3- alive
July 11 Bird #4-alive, but bludgeoned

Which brings us to this morning and my opening quote. As I opened the laundry room door to get a new trash bag for the kitchen, I heard a little scratching sound and saw a laundry drying rack that’s folded up next to the furnace shift just a tad. Close door.

Mornings are good– close all doors in hallway, open patio door and screen (where it’s nice and sunny out today, thank God!), create nice directional on where to go.
Open door to laundry room about halfway, go sit on couch to see what happens.

Bird (same type as before) comes out from dark, narrow space next to furnace and onto pipe along front edge of furnace, presumably so I can get a look at him. He hops up and flies out of laundry room, through living room and directly out of patio door and back into the wild world of New Jersey.

2008
June 28 Brid #5- alive; call to Association, call to Landlord

I hope the list doesn’t get any longer