July 22, 2004

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  It's past 11pm (I fell asleep at about 6:30pm tonight, then got up about an hour ago to "finish the job" of making the browser bar mouseovers smaller. I have now accomplished that task, and wanted to post an image (at under 500 pixels wide) here on a post, to see what it will look like. (Ah, experimentation in the name of *art*.  I chose a work from 2002. I call this "FaceJune" probably because I "drew" it in "June", and it's a "face". D'oh. . The original I believe was "drawn" in Adobe software, and then I added some photographic elements  (stolen from Webshots no less) for the "background". I notice my "signature" isn't the usual one I used in 2002 which brands this an "unfinished work". Well, I think I shall retire now. It seems like a "long day". Whoops, Forgot to call the Court!!!!   Well, just called the Court, and I do report tomorrow. So, that means I don't need to get up at 4am as usual, and I can "sleep in". Till about 7, Court's in session at 7:45am. I went to "Airport Court" in 2001, and they didn't have the "call in feature" which is prevalent in a lot of the Los Angeles County Courthouses now. Well, since I have to go into Jury Duty, (or at least see if my group is called for a case. I can take my barely started copy of Clinton's book with me to read while I'm waiting. In 2001 I read three books. Of course the trial lasted 3 months. ) I'll post a pic that I made to accompany my never completed website: "Justice In America."

  
  

   

  
  

   Here's a sample. (I love this, now I can copy/paste some old "content" from a web page that doesn't exist anymore.) It did exist, for a while, before I had to transfer the whole mess to another server (not the whole mess, the Homestead site stayed put) and then "streamlined" it. Since this "essay" was never completed, it came off the latest incarnation of the website.

  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  The jury returned, after a rough week of deliberation, with some envelopes containing the jury forms. ”Have you reached a verdict?” the judge asked, sheepishly, probably guessing the answer in advance after presiding over this particularly crazy trial for over a month.   “I guess you could call it that”, proclaimed the foreman, gingerly handing the envelopes to the Court Clerk.   Thus Begins My Story………………………………………….. I am finally back at work, trying to ease myself into what once was routine, but has now permutated into meaningless exercises in futility. The reason?   Everything seems different to me now, and it has nothing to do with September 11th, 2001.   I had only recently gotten used to my grieving for humanity when I was summoned for (what seemed to us performing the function of jury, anyway) the trial of the year, if not the century. The prose poems below chart this epiphany of “Justice In America” Justice is not only Blind, but Deaf and Dumb most of the time, as well.   Originally, I merely wanted to write an “essay” or “article” about my experiences on my first jury, but after a week or two of making notes, I have a larger, perhaps booklike endeavor in mind. These pages, like all others in the AllThingsMike universe, will be added to and grow as time goes on. This will be an online, in progress work of art, to join the other works of art. My experience on the jury of a rape trial in California took precedence for the better part of one twelfth of the past year. I tried to concentrate on my job for three hours every morning for the first two weeks. After three weeks, I grew incredibly tired. I forsook going into work, because I started working for the system. The daily grind at court was trying my patience, and my sanity, not to mention starting to bother the folks who had to go on without me at work. The plaintiff and the defendant in this case are Japanese. They spoke to us through interpreters.   Sometimes the interpreters couldn’t be secured.   The defense lawyer had a style of questioning that I will only try, but probably never succeed in explaining, but was as pleasant to experience as hearing fingernails scratch a blackboard.   In the end, nobody could tell you what really happened. Least of all those selected to try the fate of the defendant.   This project has grown in scope considerably since I first proclaimed my intentions to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Like all things Mike, my experiences caused me to think about humanity, behavior, passion, irony, and most specifically, reality, and perception., and why the second always seems to pass itself off as the first.   At the end of the trial of the year, this particular juror still cannot say for certain, whether the defendant was innocent, or guilty. Does a “hung” jury spell Justice in America?   After a month of testimony and after heated but strangely democratic deliberations that lasted a week, the jury returned, all right, and couldn’t agree on the verdict, causing the law to proclaim a deadlock. What will happen now? What happened behind the closed doors of the deliberation room? What happens when twelve rational people try to rationalize a situation beyond rational thought? It will all soon be explained in these pages. Stay tuned.

  
  

   

  
  

  Michael F.Nyiri, November 13, 2001 9:31pm, sdt

  
  

  I just put the webpage back online. I only wrote the first chapter, but it's HERE if you want to read it. Also it's an example of my "instant webpages" back in 2002. I would get an epiphany or two and the next thing you know I would create five or six "pages" of a completely different one of them. So this serves as a peek into the "creative process".

  
  

  The neatest thing about the Jury Experience in 2001 was this letter the Judge wrote to each of the Jurymen and Women.  The judge even "ordered us" to show the letter to our family and friends. He cited us for "meretorious conduct above and beyond the call of duty." for sitting on that trial. So by providing this link I am performing community service. Just as I will do tomorrow morning at the Long Beach Courthouse. We Love our L.A. Law!  

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