A couple of my friends have had jury duty in the last few weeks. I say good on 'em. It's one of the very few explicit prices we pay for the benefits of our system of government. Years ago, I'm ashamed to say, I was one of those who finagled his way out of duty if he could. But no more. I look forward to that first day in the juror lounge, where we get the safe-sex style warning lecture about jury nullification, like a six-year-old awaiting his first day of grade school.
Unfortunately, after that, it all gets a little bit less Capraesque. When I'm finally called up to the courtroom to be interviewed by defense and prosecution attorneys as a final step before being seated on the jury, it quickly becomes apparent that, although I certainly don't mean to be, I'm a trial lawyer's worst nightmare walking around in the flesh: some overeducated git back there in the room with an 11-to-1 jury, saying, "But wait a minute, wait a minute! Let's just think about this!" After that, I'm quickly sent back down to the pool.
A juror shortage forced a judge to look through a phone book before sending sheriff's deputies out into the street to round up enough people for a trial.
Lane County Presiding Judge Mary Ann Bearden said an unusually large number of criminal trials combined with an equally unusual number of no-shows for jury duty forced her to invoke a little-used state law.
"I dealt with some angry people," the judge said. "They didn't think it was fair."
But an additional 10 to 12 people were needed for the jury pool for a sex abuse trial set to begin after lunch Wednesday before Judge Gregory Foote. Other cases needed jurors, too.
"We had three extremely important criminal cases and needed to take extraordinary measures," Bearden said.
After trying the phone book and making some calls without much success, Bearden ordered Lane County sheriff's deputies to go out on a downtown Eugene street and summon citizens to immediate jury service.
"I'm sure all of them had some place they would rather be on a beautiful, sunny August day," Bearden said.
One depressing note: It's apparently harder to seat jurors in domestic-violence trials, since the percentage of jury candidates disqualified because domestic violence has touched their lives is higher than for other case types.
But Judge Bearden--I'm here for you! I'll even split gas.
While I'm waiting for my phone to ring, let's Span the State!
Look for less of one activity by which we Oregonians traditionally mark Labor Day weekend: As with Memorial Day and Independence Day weekends, we'll be driving less. And just as that reduced Oregon traffic deaths for the other two summer holidays, compared to 2007, authorities expect that this will be a somewhat safer driving weekend.
The average reported gas price in Oregon is $3.829/gal, down over 8¢ from last week (but up almost $1.08 from a year ago).
Cheapest gas price today: $3.51/gal at the Safeway on Hwy 99 in Junction City. Highest gas price today: $4.39/gal at the Tomahawk Restaurant, 92178 Marcola Rd & Savage St, in Marcola. (Doesn't the HP Carwash in Eugene even care anyore?)
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One of the many memorable moments on the Cycle Oregon 2005 tour was riding past the wind farms near Boardman. It's one thing to see photos of those giant turbines; it's another to see lines of them stretching away across the high country toward the horizon.
California already imports hydropower in the summer; Oregon and Washington take deliveries from California generators in cold winter months.
But Oregon and Washington also face clean energy laws and want the energy too.
New energy will cost more than the cheap hydroelectric power that has kept Northwest electric rates among the country's lowest. Local utilities will have to outbid California for wind power, which could make it more expensive still.
Californians pay on average more than half again as much as Oregonians for electricity.
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Update: At the beginning of the month, StSreported that an emergency rule had been fast-tracked through the Workers Compensation Division of BOLI, changing how--and how much--insurers would have to pay Oregon doctors on worker's comp claims. The change was the result of what might indelicately be called corporate blackmail:
The emergency temporary change occurred because a single national health care company, suffering financial problems, sent word through the insurer that without the change, the company would pull its business out of Oregon.
In a phone call that the insurer, Liberty Northwest, set up in early June, a state official spoke to the company, and three weeks later, the official issued an emergency rule that gave the company and the insurer what they wanted.
State doctors objected, complaining that the rule-change reducing their payments (passed with virtually no public input) would further shrink the already-shrinking pool of doctors willing to take worker's comp cases, which are already more tedious and less lucrative than the average nip 'n' tuck work.
From that story came this:
John Shilts, the division director, said he made the rule change July 7 in response to [state insurer Liberty Northwest's] threat to leave the state. Shilts said that when he changed the rule he didn't know how much business the company did in Oregon or what effect a pullout would have.
Shilts, who still has a job, amazingly enough, described the doctors' position at the time as "overreacting."
It didn't take long for the other steel-toed work shoe to drop:
Health care providers all over Oregon say they'll have to drop workers' compensation cases, after a change in how they are paid to care for those injured on the job. [...]
Administrators with the workers' compensation division at the Bureau of Labor and Industries have acknowledged that the new rule underwent a "fast analysis."
But division administrator John Shilts told The Oregonian that state actuaries had warned him that without the rule, employers would see insurance premiums shoot up.
Businesses in Oregon have long enjoyed some of the nation's lowest rates for workers' comp coverage.
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Obligatory Gordon Smith item: This weekend, delegates (and bloggers) are dragging their weary carcasses home from the DNC in Denver, shaking the confetti out of their clothes, tallying up receipts, removing the cocktail napkins from their pockets and prioritizing the phone numbers and URLs thereon in whatever way seems best, and desperately trying to brush that post-convention film off their tongues.
Meanwhile, Sen. Gordon Smith--who is in fact a Republican and must therefore come to terms with that truth, however cruel it must seem to him at the moment-- is finalizing plans not to be within a thousand miles of the Republican National Convention next week.
He's also chosen, somewhat inexplicably, to tie his increasingly quixotic "I'm a moderate" campaign to his lip-service against the Iraq war, chiefly that single speech in the near-empty Senate one night shortly after the voters handed control of Congress over to the Democrats in 2006--largely because of voter disgust with the war, as well as geysering Republican corruption.
In a campaign season where bread-and-butter economic issues are driving Iraq off the political radar screen, why is Smith still trumpeting his ersatz opposition to the war? The DNSC's latest ad hits Smith where it hurts--in the wallet.
Also, regarding Jeff Merkley's speech to the Democratic Convention last week (Merkley has the advantage of being willing to be seen with his party in public), Smith--who, you will recall, has been Bush's reliable rubber stamp in Oregon since 2001--tut-tutted that Merkley's speech "only managed to affirm to Oregonians that he would be very partisan if he was elected to senate."
No punchline or final, biting word from me could ever do justice to a quote like that; it's self-mocking.
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For a brief moment this week, all eyes in Corvallis turned to the Democratic Convention.
Here's some good news: Oregon's ethics laws--and the razor-thin separation of speech and money under its constitution--got a small boost this week:
A judge upheld new limits on lobbyist gifts under Oregon's government ethics law.
Portland lobbyist John DiLorenzo challenged the gift limits, saying they unconstitutionally restrict lobbyists' free expression rights.
But Marion County Circuit Judge Joseph Guimond ruled on Wednesday that the gift limits are constitutional and necessary to avoid any appearance that government officials are being bribed by gifts.
Under the new law, lobbyists can no longer spend more than $50 on each public official or legislator in a given year. Footing the bill for entertainment such as golf and concert tickets also is banned.
The new lobbying law was approved by the 2007 Legislature after advocates said it was needed to restore public confidence in government after a half dozen or so state lawmakers failed to disclose trips paid for by special interests to Maui and other locales in 2002 and 2004.
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Quote of the Week:
Marc Siegel, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Oregon, on McCain's selection of Palin as his running mate on the Republican ticket:
She's against Oregon's values on everything from the war in Iraq to a woman's right to choose.
And that was one of the nice responses.
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StS True Animal Story:Update: The male calf born to Oregon Zoo's Rose-Tu last week got off to a shaky start in life, but things are looking up for the holiday weekend.
The newest addition to the Oregon Zoo is ready to meet his adoring fans.
The public will be able to see the 286-pound elephant calf born last weekend to Asian elephant Rose-Tu for the first time on Saturday.
Zookeepers have been working to "baby proof" the elephant exhibit at the Oregon Zoo for the past few days.
Meanwhile, the calf has been exploring his surroundings, picking up sticks and even playing in the bath with his mother.
The baby has also been lying down to sleep with Rose-Tu, who at first displayed aggression toward the newborn.
But don't take our word for it (go on, try to watch this clip without saying "awwwww . . . ".
(Update Monday morning: When I gave this post the one last proofreading before sending it out, the fact that I had somehow managed not to include the clip of Rose Tu should have been . . . well, the elephant in the room. In any case, here's the promised mother and child reunion. Commence saying "awwwww . . . ")
And what happens next? Well, for starters, we can't just keep calling him the "male elephant calf" for ever, can we? The Zoo is asking fans to vote on the tyke's new name from a slate of possibles to be put together by his keepers.
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