Audra Jennings

My experience as a juror last week confirmed in a very real way that the world is just filled with some stupid people that do stupid things for stupid reasons. I'll start by explaining the basic facts, and then go further into the details and how the things got truly ridiculous. On March 25, 2009 at around 5:30 PM, a 20-something-year-old male African American cashier was working the express check out lane at H-E-B. This is the express lane on the south side of the store closest to 7 th Avenue in Corsicana , Navarro County, TX next to the produce. (For some reason the exact location of this particular lane was of the utmost importance.) An 11-year old girl was in line starting to put groceries up on the belt when her mother catches back up with her to check out. In the buggy, there were more than 20 items, and this was the 10 items or less lane. Evidently, there were items towards the front, and items towards the back of the buggy. A number of items were hidden underneath a large ...

At long last, I'm finally going to tell the jury duty story that I promised would come. Saturday before last, Mom checked her mail, and a jury summons for me was included in the stack of mail. It had been forwarded from their old address, but I have no idea why the municipal court had that address for me. I've not had anything (driver's license or voter's registration included) with that address on it for over 6 years. I wish the stupid thing had gotten lost in the mail. It had been sent at least a couple of weeks before, and just got to me five days beforehand. If they had hunted me down for not showing up, I would have been able to explain why I didn't get it since I had not lived at the address it was sent to in that many years and my parents didn't even live there anymore. Municipal court only handles misdemeanors that are punishable by fine. The last time I had a summons for municipal court, it was for the afternoon, so even though this was for the morning,...