Today was the first day of the trial.  I’m not allowed to talk about it at all, so some general observations:

1. The line for the metal detectors in the court house is much longer at 9:30 than 8:30

2. The people in the know at the court house call the metal detectors “magnetizers” (though maybe I’m already getting it wrong)

3. At one point or another everyone in the court room gets noticeably tired

4. It’s also fairly amazing to me how much the proceedings of the trial are geared toward the jury, which makes sense since we’re the ones everyone wants to win over — and we know so little about what the hell is going on.  Like every five seconds something is being explained to us.  Do the judges and lawyers and bailiffs really need to do all this explaining every time a new case starts?  That’d drive me crazy. It’s fascinating how procedural the system is and how much the outcome depends on twelve randomly selected individuals who know next to nothing about the procedures involved.  I guess that can be said for a lot of our representative democracy? Maybe I will make an effort to learn more about it… or maybe I will goof around on the internet more!