Prospective juror in pot trial caught smoking marijuana

Judge Sherman Ross tried to assemble a jury of peers for a woman accused of possession of a marijuana on trial Tuesday.

But authorities say prospective juror Cornelia Mayo might have taken that concept a bit too far after she was caught smoking a joint outside the courthouse during a break.

The 49-year-old Houston woman was one of 20 people in a jury pool in Criminal Court at Law No. 10.

Ross said he realized something was wrong when juror No. 2, Mayo, didn't return from a 45-minute break. Before the judge could file a bench warrant for the missing juror, his bailiff got a call from police notifying him that Mayo was being booked on a charge of smoking marijuana outside the criminal courthouse.

"I've had prospective jurors get lost before, but it never occurred to me that they might be getting ready for a marijuana trial by, allegedly, smoking marijuana," Ross said.

He also said it was a strange coincidence for a court that also sees trials for DWI's, family violence and many other misdemeanors.

"It's the first weed case I've tried in years," Ross said. "People usually plead out."

The former juror was charged with possession of marijuana. She is scheduled to be arraigned next week in Criminal Court at Law No. 11 —across the hall from Ross' courtroom.

Mayo remained in the Harris County Jail on a $500 bail Tuesday night and could not be reached for comment.

This past Monday we had this guy that showed up to his Jury assignment late by 45 minutes or so. Then during a 5 minute break he was 20-30 minutes late. Somebody had seen the guy leave the building and go across the street. The bailiff wasn’t going to allow us in until the guy showed up. Then on the last break prior to Jury selection somebody got on to the guy and told him to stay put and he did. Stood right next to the door the whole time. But somebody else didn’t return from the break. I guess it was a good thing that second guy didn’t get picked. LOL!

LOL! I have to one-up this story though,

I was standing in line to be fingerprinted with other police trainee hopefuls and this guy behind me says, “I just did this last night.” I asked him if the PD was screening applicants the night before. He said, “No, I just got out of jail this morning.” He walked out of his cell, went downstairs and got into the line to become a LEO. He was so sincere and I was just laughing my head off at him.

I picked a particularly entertaining day for going on a police ride-a-long. By pure luck I knew the officer from some years before when he had been a landscaper.

The first call was a particularly icky traffic accident, so I excused myself for a moment to find a nice bush to throw up behind.

The next call had half the police department trying to catch a flasher who had been very active for six months, but the only description they had was that he was a “white male, about 40”, because nobody ever looked up. Ron Jeremy’s big brother kind of guy. No luck with that, however. Lots of puns all around. Lots.

After that was an armed burglary call in progress, but no particular rush, as the perp was so terrified of the old WWII veteran he had tried to rob earlier that he was very, very glad when the police offered to arrest him. The two were both just sitting in easy chairs facing each other, but the perp was crying and had actually pooped himself in fear.

Because they arrested the perp, they wouldn’t say what the old guy had actually done, but it must have been special.

The final call of the shift was a PCP guy outside a biker bar, who ended up injuring the police officer, though his police officer peers insured that PCP guy wouldn’t be doing that again for a long, long time.

At the hospital, they had coincidentally brought in five (very) fatal but unrelated motorcycle accidents all at once, which convinced me to lose all interest in riding in the future.

He assured me that it had not been a typical day.

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