A couple months ago I received a letter from the Ministry of Justice.
"Not another speeding ticket" I thought but then remembered that those come from the police.
So what was this... a jury summons!
At work I would say that when I am absent things have a tendency to get a little disorganized. So initially we tried to work out a letter to request that I be excused but I would have had to be recalled within a year anyways so we figured get it over with.
So the week before I was doing double the work to make sure I had covered off anything that needed to be done if I ended up on a jury! Then the jury selection day came and after about 4 hours at the court house, we were released and told to check back after 5:30pm the next day. We were put off the next day and told to check again which then reported that we were off for the rest of the time.
There was quite a controversial local case up on the books for this time period and the verdict was released today. The basic version is that a bunch of 17/18 year olds had a raging, drunken party and things happened behind closed doors between two guys and a girl that ended up on video and then on Facebook. The boys were up for rape/rape-related charges. Today the jury found them not guilty.
Suffice it to say, this would have been an interesting case to be on the jury for. The weirdest part was that the video footage was deleted and was not part of the evidence. (I thought facebook kept everything?)
I am probably glad to not have had to serve (notwithstanding the life/work interruption) but it has really got me thinking back to when I was 17/18 and what went on in our city (which for those who know, had quite a poor reputation itself for loose teenagers...) and I am feeling old as I say - I can't believe kids these days! Even those we went to school with that had less than impeccable reputations didn't have public liaisons of this scale. Maybe it's the fact that it's a small town and maybe tons of this stuff was happening but was too run-of-the-mill to warrant much media attention back then? I really don't think so though. Obviously too, the social media angle wasn't part of the equation when I was in high school so that adds a whole other layer to this.
It is fairly shocking though to hear the attitudes of the defendants and the whole "everyone is doing it" thoughts that seem to make it ok. There are a lot of young'uns that Dustin has crossed paths with through work over the years and the worst/most surprising stories have come from the last couple years here. Just the things that 18 year old boys don't know or understand is unbelievable. Maybe it's all just me getting old? In any case, I'd say I am pretty pleased to not have to consider this minefield of teen-life and how I might guide a child through it - if the last 12+ years have seen this large of a downturn in acceptable behaviour, I can't imagine what's next...
Now I definitely sound old. It will all make for some interesting debate over the next few days though.
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