So I got a summons to go downtown yesterday and participate in jury duty for my first time. I was actually pretty excited about the opportunity and was hoping that I would be picked to be on the final jury. Unfortunately, I ended up being juror candidate 22 (out of 23 present), and they ended up only needing the first 6. Regardless, I chose to stay and watch the trial since it seemed kind of interesting and my boss already had the expectation that I'd be gone the whole day.

@#&$@#!!

Apparently a lady was riding her bicycle on the Town Lake Hike & Bike trail in February and almost ran into a loose dog on the trail. She shouted some profanity ("expletive deleted") at the dog's owner as she passed, and some nearby bicycle cops happened to hear it and gave her a citation for disorderly conduct by disturbing the peace. The cops testified that at the time she was ticketed, the woman admitted to shouting the profanity and apologized for it.

The jury ended up finding her unanimously not guilty, despite the absolutely horrible job that she did while representing herself and not actually providing any compelling arguments. The testimony of the two bicycle cops was basically insufficient to get the verdict.

(At the time of the ticket, she supposedly claimed to the police office that the profanity was part of a story she was telling to a friend she was bicycling with. But there was no exploration of why a profanity in a retold story would have been more appropriate in a public area, or why she changed her excuse to now being because a loose dog was in the path, nor why shouting a profanity at the dog's owner would have been more justifiable.)

If the jury had found her guilty, they could have fined her between $1 and $500.