Today I was summoned by the call of the great gavel to provide the potential service of judgement. My service would be determined by the competing opinions of the proecution and defense attorneys to whether I could be easily convinced of guilt or innocence respectively.
The day began with an inquest. Three people with latino surnames had died and six jurors and two alternates would focus their experience of
CSI and
Law and Order to decide if the death was natural. The man from the coroners office made light jokes and warned of gruesome exposure but added that volunteers would b e guaranteed early leave. After asking for a show of hands of those not willing to volunteer with none rising in response, he laughed and said "I thought so." He then proceeded to whittle the list of volunteers by calling out our juror number and asking us to remain in the lounge.
I was the first calld upon not to participate in the inquest. Not being a regular viewer of any of the half dozen
CSI spin offs, I wasn't disappointed. I went and laid recumbant upon the soft, low-backed couches aligned beside the great glass wall that overlooked the man-made pond outside the DuPage county court house. There I read the
Chicago Tribune,
Harpers and five chapters of
The Time Traveler's Wife before being released for lunch.
Returning with a full stomach I waited in the security line while tanned attorneys in cowboy hats and members of our domestic army strutted past unhindered by metal detector or surly guard. I overheard a lawyer's lawspeech to the tune of "Lex Loci". Curious to the meaning I powered up my laptop to consult the "online english/latin translator" returned from my Google search. I clicked several results and each acted like a dead link. The probabilities became certainties that the Internet connection was filtering the content.
In desperation I clicked on the sponsored links. Each brought me to a page offering translation services at lofty prices. Being unwilling to pay $5 per word, I left the website unable to find the true meaning of "lex loci".
