Tuesday, December 3, 2013

PRESUMPTION of Guilt

A couple of months ago, I received a jury summons in the mail. I'll admit my first thoughts were "I don't have time to deal with this, how can I get out of it" I eventually decided to respond to this during my time as an intern in the courthouse, largely because of many conversations I'd had with judges and attorneys about the importance of juries and responding to jury duty.

Fast forward to my scheduled jury date.
For those who have never gotten called, the way it works is,

Day 1: Jury Panel. The attorneys for both sides (prosecutor for the state, in criminal proceedings) ask the panel of (in my case 70 people) a number of questions with the goal of flushing out bias that potential jurors have about the case in question. The goal is to remove people with obvious biases and assemble the least biased 12/13 members of the panel and make them jurors. For example: IF there is a case involving a drug possession violation, the prosecutor probably wants to remove all parties who have drug convictions themselves, anyone whose family was ruined forever when his/her father/mother went to prison for just a teeny tiny amount of cocaine. Then the lawyers pick off certain people from their comments and of those left, they pick the first 13 (12 jurors 1 alternate). (Side Note, the closer to the front you are, the greater the chances that you'll end up on the jury.)

The way they try to flush out these biases is through a series of questions that jury panel members are to answer correctly. The case I was impaneled for involved a Felony Family Assault Violence case which means the accused has been convicted of a similar crime in the past. And through the conversation with the prosecutor, so many things were revealed. As you can imagine, a group of 70 members of the Travis County public have different experiences with Family Violence. Some involved personally, some more distant. One lady shared that her aunt was killed by her abusive partner, another witnessed his mother get assaulted growing up, another spoke to her work experience seeing the cycle of violence and "if he did it before, he probably did it again", another questioned the requirement of physical pain or injury in the definition of the crime, wondering if a pulled hair should carry the same punishment as a cracked rib.

Even as we discussed further the law, many questioned the ability to find a person not guilty if he/she did not testify for themselves. They simply couldnt understand how someone who didn't commit the offense for which they were being accused, would not stand up and speak for themselves to the jurors deciding their fate. The Prosecutor did a fine job of weeding out the person who had already made up their mind about the accused's guilt.

What was unjust about the whole thing is, While we're sitting there, we all would glance at the accused and back at the attorneys asking questions. It seemed to me like it was a foregone conclusion that this man was guilty of something. They say "Presumption of Innocence" but even for someone like me who hadn't had any personal experience with domestic violence, it was difficult to hear the story about another juror who's aunt was shot to death by her husband, and not think "YOU, YOU HORRIBLE PERSON, YOU'RE JUST LIKE HIM." I mean think about it, we're all sitting in the courtroom and our mental hands are pointing fingers at this man, and I truly think 10 minutes into these questions, No one on the jury panel could fathom that this defendant was an innocent guy on the street picked up for this awful offense.



I didn't feel the need to be the annoying smarty pant law student, so I sat quietly with a comforting thought that as Juror 63 of 70, it was HIGHLY unlikely that I would get picked for the jury, so I just took the opportunity to make my observations about our criminal justice system where Justice is rarely found. Its likely more so a "System for Criminals, and maybe sometimes Justice"

I Will Wait (not your typical post about waiting)

Its 3a.m. and instead of sleeping or prepping for my class in 5 hours, I am here blogging. Mostly because I have an idea in my head and my friend (Shout out T.P) recently asked me if I was still blogging, so I figured I'd post something!


SO, I recently had an epiphany....or maybe just a light got brighter in my mind about who I am and what I want. Over the recent thanksgiving break I had a chance to be really introspective and consider a few things about this year so far for myself. The break lent itself to this because I stayed back in Austin to get some Exam prep done. (how that worked out is a different topic.)


I saw a tweet that said something along the lines of "At any given time most girls have about 3 guys they are consistently texting and they are most interested in the one who is least interested."


 I feel like I have changed so much since law school started and not all in ways I like. I remember a conversation with my sister while i was an undergrad, about a guy, whatever new guy had my attention that season, and how I was no longer going to be associating with him because he was not as interested as I would want of someone requesting the privilege of my time. Maybe it was arrogant, maybe it was confidence who knows? I know I want to be pursued and so a guy who was waiting on me to act all the time would have to hit the road very quickly. 


Fast forward to the last year and I feel like while I am much busier, I have begun to devalue my time. Which is INSANE because I am literally busier than I've ever been in my life. I think this may be linked to my confidence in myself which has taken a hit in the last year, more academically than anything else, but I think when you're used to being one of the smarter people in the room you have no idea how linked that is to other parts of your identity. Needless to say I have not achieved academic prowess in my recent endeavor and my general confidence must have taken a hit. (This is my current theory.) As a result of this shift/shrink in confidence, I think I have wasted more time on people (guys) who I don't think are interested in me, and some who I am not even really interested in. I also think some of this stems from my belief (which statistics seems to support) that women especially black women with higher education are less marriable, whether that stems from somethign within, a level of pride that many men cant deal with, or something without, in society that says a woman is either a career woman or a homemaker and not both. This also is a topic for a different post. 


My point is, I figured I'd really like to meet my husband while in law school, get married sometime soon afterward and let that be a part factor in where I live and practice. This belief, I think has led me to be more open to people that maybe I should not be open to at all. Not saying I am desperate (ahem, the current term is thirst... such a gross word) but I guess I always thought I was single in undergrad because I was too picky or just felt like I had all the time in the world, and now that has magically changed. I somehow started to think if I would just try harder, take more rubbish, be less assertive, be less...me, I would have better luck. 


WHICH OF COURSE IS INSANE. I am 23years old for goodness sakes, I have nothing but time. Time to invest in my relationship with the Lord, friends and family, school and career and so much more. I have time that I cannot begin to devalue, not just YET. So my epiphany is thus: VALUE YOUR WAITING TIME. Because by doing so, you give it away very carefully and not all willynilly to anyone who inquires of a few minutes. I realize I really truly would rather have a 30minute chat with a dear girlfriend and pour into her life than give away my valuable free time to a man who I have not EVEN decided that I am interested in, and needless to say, as is often typical of many guys my age these days, he himself has not given it much thought.



 So, Say Goodbye to crazy unconfident 2013 Ayo.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Does he have to wear his ring??

It is crazy to me when I see men who are married who dont wear their wedding rings. I dont understand it at all. Like, WHY. I mean, I understand that Men should do the approaching, so ring or no ring, he can approach women, and 2, women should wear their rings to avoid the risk of unsuspecting men approaching them. STILL none of these make it reasonable for a guy not to wear his wedding ring.

WHOMEVER my husband is (if I have one....) better know the day I catch him running around town without his wedding ring is the day I...... I dont event know what to say, I guess it'll be a big fight!

Thats all for me on this short topic.

BUT are you serious tho?

Short Post about Guys:

I was at an event this weekend where a discussion was happening about men and women relationships, the usual suspects came up..... Men dont approach women....Women are intimidating...Women dont seem available....Women need to make moves too... and whatever else you can come up with, so my friend who is moreso a big brother gets up there while his wife was speaking and said something to the tune of "Oh, I didnt think y'all were serious." In reference to the entire conversation because he couldn't take the people in the audience and who had spoken (of which, I admit, I was one) seriously because, it wasn't clear that people were really looking for anything long term. Or at least serious about it. So of course I've been thinking about it and my conclusion is this WOMEN HAVE A TALENT FOR KNOWING WHEN A GUY IS SERIOUS AND WHEN HE IS NOT. The difference is how we act about it. Some women will sit around waiting for him to become serious. Some are satisfied with less than serious because, at least they've got a man.
And when I say serious, I mean about his life, his future, the purpose of pursuing a woman, a relationship, what he wants in a wife, all these things are apparent quicker than men realize.

Now, I realize Im probably generalizing, but in my experience I usually very quickly shrug off the guys who I know are not serious. Its something about not having someone waste your time. If you are not really serious about what you want out of your life and a relationship with me, you will get slid off into a zone of casual friendship. I don't know exactly what the tell is, maybe its the "What are you wearing" questions or the numerous conversations that aren't really about anything of substance.
I say this because I know theres a few things I need to know about someone attempting to get one of my most valued possessions (my time). And when a guy isn't interested in getting answers to similar things that he should want to know about me, if he's curious about long term, I am put on alert about his seriousness or lack of.

Im not saying you need to have a 12 steps to marriage plan with every woman you interact with, but I have trouble believing that a guy will just meet a girl and THEN he becomes ready for marriage. I believe that more guys sort of make that decision in their mind before any phenomenal woman walks into their lives. This is why I think we hear of stories where a man dates a woman for 5...7years, she wants marriage, he doesnt, she gives him an ultimatum, he walks, Or he says hes not ready for all that, and then the next woman he dates for...6months and marries. I think that decision has to happen in his head without any prodding or pushing.

So my advice is, Quickly evaluate if a guy is serious or not. If it appears he is not, QUICKLY move on. You're better off without him. Until a guy is serious, every woman he comes in contact with will be PURPOSELY wasting her time with him

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Monday fail

Went home to Houston this weekend to see my family. It was bittersweet. It was wonderful to see my moms and brother but definitely did not want to go back to Austin. Havent seen them since.. September,  I think.
As I drove off, my 7yr old bro TJ (who I adore) yells STOP! then runs to the car, opens up the back door, grabs a packet of cookies he had left from church earlier, and then shuts that door, opens my door, kisses me on the cheek and runs off. I was just.....broken. I wanted to turn around and scream, "Please PLEASE DONT MAKE ME GO BACK to...... law school." Lol.

Monday after i  had a panic moment while getting dressed. Tried to put on my belt and freaked out cuz it was much too short to go around my waist. I was like, Dang, I knew I added a few lbs but this is ridic. So, I try again and then I took a good look at the belts shiny hoops and realized it was not my belt, rather its T.J's.
Tender moments on a Monday morning.

Miss my baybay

Friday, March 15, 2013

MEN ARE LIARS


This is not a stereotypical blog post about the affinity of men for the non-truth. Lol, while that would be true, women lie too.

Anyway, I was just thinking about some of the crazy lies that men have told for such a long time about women that we believe to be true but may not be so.

1. Women are fragile

This is especially funny because I read somewhere that the threshold of pain that women can take is generally higher than men's. Example: Childbirth. I heard there is a new machine that simulates the level of pain that women encounter in labor. Only for the extremely brave of man-kind of course. I mean one could argue that not all women go through childbirth, and not all men cry over papercuts. But the fact that women endure this pain everyday, is enough to show that we have a much higher capacity for pain that men.

And let's not even talk about the monthly ummmm....pain that many women endure, even those who have decided they're not bearing children. I still think we should have a discretionary day of every month when it gets too real.

2. Women are too emotionally invested

I was thinking the other day,I have two friends who have names of significant others tattooed on their body....both are men. Also, try ignoring a guy after talking to them a lot. They get in their getting real quick, they all just show it differently, done by bloating up your phone with text messages... calls.... I'd attach screenshots but....that would be rude.AGAIN, this one can goo either way, but my point is that it's not solely a woman thing.

3. Women talk too much.

This one is just Soooo not true. Studies have shown that this simply isn't true. The study that said that women do gas been long discounted s incorrect user people still believe it.
Women are naturally better listeners and spend some time listening, also considering the male ego and general desire to be heard, men talk more than women, but we've all heard the opposite so much that women try to tone it down so we could be less talkative. So, ladies,I say, talk! TALK TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT. We have some catching up to do.

As usual, here are my musings, and they are EPIC

I AM NOT MY HAIR

I just cut all my hair off........again. Lol! 5years ago in 2008, I cut all my hair off to go natural. I started again and BOY, it was a process. So why did I cut my hair again..........

Good Question. I figure a lot of people will be asking me that question so, Ive come up with a list of some true, some funny, some just weird possible reasons.

1. To be a short haired model
2. To be like India Arie
3. Its getting HOT
4. It started falling off because of stress
5. Had to get it before the chemo
6. I just wanna mess with people's minds
7. Trying to be like Amber Rose
8. I lost a bet
9. My boyfriend made me
10. Try something different
11. Save on my water bill
12. Save on my get ready time in the morning
13. Get in touch with my roots

Im gonna stop now. Feel free to pic from this list. In other news, I am STILL not my hair.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Small Caveat about my blog

Having had my blog page for a few years now, I often reread old posts and I am tempted to rewrite some of it or just delete some posts that I feel reflect some REALLY immature reasoning. I say this to say, If you are reading my blog and you read something that sounds immature, REST ASSURED I probably agree with you, but for ......artistic integrity...(thats my excuse anyway) Im choosing not to delete them, because sometimes it is interesting to see the date-stamp and remember how silly I was back then.

ANYWAY!

AS YOU WERE!

The Case of the Missing Rings

Its 3a.m. on a Saturday morning and I'm still awake. And random posts like this are the reason I renamed by blog "Epic Musings", because I am musing, and I think its quite epic.

So the case of the missing rings. I am noticing the Missing Rings more often than I'd like. You know the ring I'm talking about....from the left ring finger??? of many very successful motivated women(lawyers & other professionals). As a law student, I often attend firm receptions and on campus firm events and I don't know what it is about these firms that makes the women stay unmarried (especially the women whose skin tones are similar to mine). Now don't get me wrong,I do encounter many married women who work at firms, some with children, in fact, I recently interviewed with one where the lady was a woman of color and mentioned her attorney husband.

Is it the long hours? The motivation coupled with being intimidating? Is it an over-powering drive that forces women to choose between career and family? Is it (for minority women) a desire to only date within their race coupled with the unequal numbers of male to female minorities in high-paying careers?

I wish I had the answer. I say this as a soon to be lawyer, who is very single and desires to have a husband and a family in the near future, I am concerned. Granted, everyone's path is different, we all have our lives to live, and there isn't a formula that promises to yield all the things I want: Career Stability and Success, Family, Work/Life Balance and what not. I look forward to figuring that as I go. May God help me!