0:02 who are you and where are you going what do you [Music] want hello and welcome to jiggers this place I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every other Thursday at 5:00 pm Pacific time to have a cocktail and talk
0:37 about all the things that make life worth living outside of our business and professional lives so uh this is our yeah this is our first show uh no this is our second show I think for uh 2025 and uh so um to oh Somebody's knocking on my door excuse me trying to sell me something um and so
1:12 um this this this afternoon this evening I'm gon to be talking about I've been promoting the show this week uh this way all this week and that is um I'm gonna be talking about the the thing that everybody wants to get out of and that's jury duty and uh in in honor of that the cocktail I'm going to make tonight is called the deliberation and uh this this was uh designed for me by chap GPT my co- cocktail Creator I guess we' call it and
1:47 um so let's see here here's here's our uh here's our recipe and by the way if you want to get these recipes just uh go to my website bmo.com and scroll down to the bottom the homepage and sign up for my email list and then you will get an email before a couple hours before the show uh with the recipe so we're the the cocktail is a bourbon based cocktail and I'm going to be using uh Redwood Empire's pipe dream bourbon whiskey now there's two reasons I chose this one is
2:22 uh Redwood Empire just they do really fantastic whiskies they do one of my favorite rise um and and and this bourbon is quite good and the other reason is is um a lot of people think that bourbon can only come from Kentucky now most bourbon does come from Kentucky but the the origin of of the whiskey has nothing to do with whether it's bourbon basically um the requirements for bourbon are that it be at least 50% corn in the mash and that
3:00 it be um distilled in um charred first fill charred barrels okay that's pretty much it now again a lot of a lot of bourbon probably the majority of bourbon does come from Kentucky but it can be made not only just in the United States but it can be made outside the United States in theory in practice actually I take that back um bourbon has to be made in the United States um in order for it to be sold in the United States and be called bourbon so um anyway so this is Redwood Empire and and this is made uh here in
3:35 California in fact let's see it's made in shoot I forget the uh that I remember exactly where their Distillery is oh Sonoma County there it is yeah Sonoma County California which is also a big wine region okay and then some dry vermouth so I'm gonna use Martini dry vermouth classic classic dry vermouth um since uh 1863 okay we've got some lemon juice in this case fresh squeezed lemon juice always great some simple syrup simple
4:11 syrup is really just sugar dissolved in water and then the recipe if you saw it calls for aromatic bitters um I'm going to use bitterman's scarbough Savory herbal bitters um I have the whole range of uh bitterman's bitters um normally you would use angura aromatic B bitters that's one of the um best known bits but I I decided to try and change things up a little bit one of the ingredient or one of the um um yeah aspects of uh of
4:47 Scarborough Savory herbal bitters is it has Rosemary in it and we're going to garnish this cocktail with rosemary so I thought that might be nice to have that reminiscent um and then uh says put a splash of soda in it so I have my siphon here and I've got my garnish my uh Rosemary and my lemon twist okay so here we go and I've got my shaker here with it's already filled with ice I've got my rocks glass this was a hand blown uh glass that my mother and daughter got me
5:23 couple of years ago um when they were on a little outing in um uh near where my mother lives uh down in Oceanside California okay so let's see what do we got here we'll use this one yeah okay so we're going to start out with a [ __ ] of bourbon otherwise known as an ounce and a half of bourbon this is not a particularly alcoholic uh cocktail um it's got Bourbon and then just a a little bit of
6:00 of Drive REM that's that's and and you know Drive remou is a fortified wine so uh it's not anything like the proof of of liquor and let's see we want a we want a half ounce of the of the driver move okay and we're going to put in 34 of an ounce of lemon
6:41 juice you know for someone who's such a neat guy I'm not a particularly neat L tender I'm always spilling things but that's okay okay and then a half ounce of uh simple syrup okay and then last um a couple of dashes of the bids
7:31 okay we're going to cover this up and we're going to shake it until it's well chill and that's a good you know 20 to 30 seconds I say this every time we use the Shaker it's not just about chilling it down but it's also about um uh letting some the ice melt and uh diluting the various ingredients to bring out some of the flavors you can see the Shaker is getting nice and icy on the outside here um I'm not a fancy
8:07 Shaker you know there's bartenders down they shake it up here you ever seen a movie Cocktail you know they did all kind of stuff throwing things behind their back and no that you know I'm just I'm just your regular home bartender so that and getting pretty close here okay okay there we go and we're going to strain it into the rocks glass which is also already filled with
8:50 ice okay and we're going to top it off with a splash of soda and we're going to put in a lemon twist I'll use this one and the um the uh Rosemary is almost like a stir stick so we're g to kind of put that off to the side and let's let's you know glasses NE
9:26 has a little thumb hole thumb thumb hole here and let's give us a taste well done okay I'll see you on the other side
10:24 so here we are the nice thing about this cocktail is the bourbon and the simple syrup are on the sweet side and the lemon juice of course is Tangy the um the Bitters and the um uh um Rosemary bring an herbal sort of earthy to it and uh it all mixes
11:01 together so nicely um it is a little bit on the chili side today so so that you know to have a nice cocktail I should have turned my fireplace on but that's okay so uh last month uh December I had and I mean this sincerely I have the opportunity to be on jury duty so when I first got the summons um of course I was irritated I guess as we all
11:36 are but you know I thought about it and the reality is that here in the United States there's actually very few duties of citizenship um especially duties that are conducted on behalf of our uh specific fellow citizens and so um pardon me I um I did my best to change my attitude um I didn't start looking for ways to get out of it and I was I live in Los
12:14 Angeles as as um you know if you've watched the show before I was assigned to I I felt I was lucky because I was assigned to jury duty in Santa Monica uh as opposed to downtown Los Angeles which takes much longer get to get to it's much harder to park and all of that and the way jury duty works here in Los Angeles is you have to register when you get your summons and then essentially the evening before you're supposed to appear in court um you you check the jury duty
12:52 Port portal to see if you actually have to show up you can call in or now you can check online and I checked and it said I had been reassigned to the Beverly Hills courthouse which was even closer to my house because I live just a few blocks south of Beverly Hills so I get up in the morning get dressed put on my suit and tie and I report to the court this the summon said be there by 8:30 and so I get to the Beverly Hills courthouse and I get up to the Jury Room
13:28 and there's a few of us there but none of the Court officials are there what's going on what's going on oh sorry when they switched you from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills they didn't note that you needed to show up an hour later oh you know palmed the forehead but you know I was there already there was no point in in leaving I had brought my newspaper so I I sat down and I read my newspaper and um after about 45 minutes the clerk um showed up and he
14:03 started um you know taking us through the procedure um I had done all filled out my questionnaire online but for whatever reason they made us fill it out again um it's a questionnaire that um they then give to the attorneys um as part of the screening process and after about another 45 minutes or hour or so um they walked us over to the courtroom and we all sat outside the courtroom and the clerk explained that when we went in
14:40 the first 15 of us would be sitting in the in the jury uh jury section and the other there were I think uh 29 28 or 29 of us in total we would be sitting basically in the audience section so I wasn't in the first 15 and so I sat down the audience section and the process started and I it was it was very interesting because from the very first person it was clear that uh people did not want to
15:15 serve so the the matter that was uh being tried it was a civil matter not a criminal case and it was basically a uh contract dispute um where uh the uh plaintiff had allegedly orally agreed to invest money with the defendant he he invested the money there was no written agreement and so then um The Venture fell apart and the investor wanted his
15:51 money back and the defendant uh wasn't forthcoming so he ended up suing and I I think the amount was for in excess of a million dollars right it was a it was a fairly complex business situation involving oral contracts what makes an oral contract you know dispute between investor and entrepreneur that that kind of thing and so as I'm listening to them explain what the case is about I'm thinking wow this this this is pretty interesting um this involves uh you know
16:27 not a lot of things that I do do but it involves the kind of business that I'm in and uh it might be really interesting to serve on it and then they noted that they were anticipating it was going to take two weeks to um hear the case actually I take the it wasn't in December it was in November it was before Thanksgiving So the plan was they were going to have a week of trial uh um no I'm sorry they were going to have uh uh three days of trial the week of Thanksgiving take two days off come back
17:03 the following week hopefully finish by the end of that following week but if not maybe take another day or two the week after that in as they went into December so um the way it works if you've never been to jury duty is um the plaintiff's attorney gets the first opportunity to to in What's called the Vader that's when they ask the potential jurors questions and um you know decide whether they want that particular individual and panel on the jury or not and so the plaintiff's
17:40 attorney goes first and he introduces himself and he explains a little bit about himself a little bit about um the case and then he has uh questions that he has a list of questions um that each juror is going to answer and then he has some he has some follow-up questions so as they as each juror goes through the list of questions it's clear that they're trying to figure out which one if I if I answer it right will get me not imp panels
18:15 right um and so uh one of the first couple of jurs um you know she she read the an or she gave her answers and then the uh the plain of attorney says is there anything else about this this you know this uh you know you as a juror that you uh want us to know and she said well she said you know it's going to be a real financial hardship for me to serve on jury duty oh why is that well uh you know blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah d
18:52 right and it was clear that a lot of jurors were going to go in that direction one second and so the judge spoke up and he gave what I thought was a terrific speech and he he acknowledged that serving on jury duty is a financial
19:29 hardship because you don't get you don't get paid for the first day you're there basically you don't get paid unless you're impanel so even just showing up for you know potentially serving on jury duty you're losing a day of work and jury pay is like $20 a day or something I mean when you think about it that's you know a pittance compared to what um most people make and he said you know I understand that for many people that's a big loss
20:04 and he said but unfortunately that's not a reason why you can be excused and in fact serving on jury duty is a requirement of citizenship in the United States number one and number two if you feel that people don't get paid enough for being on jury duty the remedy for that is to you know talk to your elected officials and explain to them that people serving on jury duty need to get paid more money um to offset the
20:41 financial hardship he said but of course that would probably come with you know higher taxes and so these are the tradeoffs that as Citizens uh and residents of a municipality or County we need to think about um but the bottom line is the Constitution guarantees a trial by jury it's for us in America a truly a a great thing that we can essentially demand to be Tried by a jury of our peers because there's many countries
21:16 where you do not have that right and so as part as as part of the concurrent Duty duties that come with rights we we have to serve and fact that it may be uh financially difficult is not a reason not to serve um and and I I mean I honestly I felt like clapping after he said that uh so after the uh plaintiff's attorney asks his questions so then the defendant attorney
21:53 gets to ask his questions and pretty quickly it became evident that uh the plaintiff wanted jurors who were kind of I mean they they didn't care if they were you know kind of everyday folks or if they were very knowledgeable about business um you know they wanted people on the jury who uh basically didn't have a a real legitimate reason for not being able to serve whereas the defend
22:29 lawyer it became clear that he didn't want anyone on the jury who knew about business so of the 28 jurors that were there there were three of us who were very experienced in business one was a venture capitalist another was a lawyer who specialized in uh business uh in in in business law and and and litigation and such and who's who's been in business for a long time I'm professional fiduciary I administrate assets I deal
23:05 with all these kind of questions all the time um and so they got through most of the way through the first group and then it was lunchtime and so they recessed for lunch and um after lunch uh pretty much right after lunch the two lawyers and the judges conferred and they decided that uh certain jurors were going to be excused there was one woman there who had some pretty severe um health issues for her to sit for long
23:42 periods of time caused her a great deal of pain um it was you could tell it was very hard for her to concentrate and so they excused her um there was another person who um he had uh his mother in his elderly mother in Florida was scheduled to move to California the movers have been hired the house was ready to be packed up and you know that was going to happen just a few days after the trial started so they excused him so he could go help his mother who I
24:17 think they asked him the mother's age I think she was in her 80s um you know and and so he was excused there were I think about four one two three four there were a total of five people out of the first group of 15 uh that that were excused and so then they brought five new Replacements in to you know go through the process and they went through the Vader with them and uh they excused one of them uh
24:54 pretty quickly um and so then I got set to be in the hot seat so to speak and so uh one of the questions they asked was um are you involved currently in um any litigation right and so when it came my time to answer so when I came to that I I said uh based on what other PE how other people answered I said well presumably you don't mean being involved in a divorce the whole courtroom busted out laughing the judge cracked up both
25:29 the lawyers cracked up I mean all the lawyers there was more than there were two or three lawyers for each side they all started laughing and the plainist LA talking he says he says yeah no we don't we don't mean that I said I I assume not but yeah figured i' just double Jack um and um you know my frankly my goal was to get people laughing it it it was such a not laughing kind of day and and you know so I answered my questions and they asked you know about your your experience with business and Investments and this and that you know
26:05 answer all right and so um they finally got down to the point where there were 15 people sitting in the chairs and there were no other uh you know potential jurors right and they out of the 15 they needed to have I believe was 12 because they needed like nine jurs and two alternates or something like this right so I'm thinking okay well it looks like I'm in right so they finish asking
26:40 all the questions of everybody and then once again the the judge and the lawyers um go off to the side and they confer and they came back and they excused the three of all three of us who had business experience kind of one by one right and when you're excused you go back to the Jury Room to check out with the clerk and so by the time I got there the other two were still there I guess there was kind of a backlog or whatever and I saw
27:16 them there and I said well clearly they didn't want somebody who really understood the issues on it and we started laughing and talking about that but when you think about it it's really kind of sad because you would think you would want jurors who could really understand the intricacies not just of the law but of how things work in general and that is not what the defense Council wanted at at all and and I will say when I did get excused I I I I had very mixed feelings
27:54 about it so on the one hand I had I I had previously seen who had been excused there was one um young woman who was excused because um she had had her identity stolen and the person who stole her identity committed a a bunch of criminal acts she got indicted and she had to go through a whole lengthy lengthy lengthy legal process to finally convince the authorities that the person who had
28:29 committed committed the crimes in her name were it was not her it was someone who stole her identity and here she was back in the courtroom barely able to keep herself from crying I I spoke to her um during the break to see if she was okay and she started to cry and then and she mentioned she was five months pregnant or four months pregnant some I was like oh my gosh I said they've got to excuse this this you know this young woman which which they did and I felt like you know compared to someone like that who
29:06 has a very legitimate reason for not serving I really should serve um on the other hand you know being away from work for two weeks you know it backs up it it it you know it makes life diff because it's not like I can just not work I can go to jury duty and go home and not worry about it I still have responsibilities I'd be on the phone in the morning before jury duty started I'd be on the phone as soon as jury duty ended you know getting in my car driving back to my office Etc and I wasn't particularly looking forward to that but
29:41 on the other hand on the third hand you we don't have three hands um I I think it would have been quite fascinating to see how this case uh worked out to learn the facts to see uh what was going on because in the part of the court I deal with the probate court so it's not that bizarre stuff doesn't happen it certainly does but you don't have jury trials um you you know you you you don't have um anything not that not that court
30:16 is actually as dramatic as we see on TV because it clearly is not but there is a certain drama um to to litigation I I I have been involved um in civil litigation primarily as as an expert witness and there is a certain drama there and and the process of getting to the truth is quite fascinating and I've never had the opportunity to essentially be a part of deciding what is Justice in this
30:51 case right and so I was kind of disappointed um that I that I didn't get get chos because I I think I would have uh it would have been a very good experience seeing it through uh and and and so you know having thinking about it over the um succeeding weeks this is what I've come up with have another drink
31:26 so we're very very very fortunate to have the rights that we have here in in the United States and I think one of the aspects of living in the United States that's not robust enough is the idea that with rights comes come duties I mentioned this a while back rights without concurrent duties infantilized us so a
32:03 child not NE well I mean somewhat legally but morally has a right to shelter food protection um were it only you know parents um and the child has no concurrent duties especially a very small child they have no duties that is the different one of the differences anyway between being a child and being an adult is as a child it's reasonable to
32:38 expect um that we're going to receive certain things without our having to give anything in return but for adults generally speaking that is not the case now hopefully if we're married um we love our spouse and um we don't necessarily expect anything in return per se although I think it's a pretty sterile marriage if only one spouse is doing all the giving and the other
33:14 spouse is doing all and and the other spouse is doing all the receiving it should be mutual um it's never going to be equal um but it should be mutual and and that's how it is with our country our our being a citizen being a citizen is a relationship we have to our country and to our fellow citizens and so there are duties that we need to fulfill in order to make that
33:49 relationship meaningful otherwise whereas as as it's said in Yiddish a schnor which is basically like a thief so I think when the judge brought that up that was a very important point to be made I think the second thing is that most of I about most but a lot of what we know about life we learn from somewhat artificial sources movies television that sort of thing um and
34:26 those are not real life and it's important for us to have real life experiences so you know watching I I I honestly I don't even know what the great courtroom you know shows are these days but you know in my day it was it was Perry Mason and um um there there were some others that aren't coming to mind right at the moment um those as as realis as Perry Mason for example tried to make it look um that is
35:03 Perry Mason is is not how uh how courts really operate um the only way to know how courts really operate is to see courts actual courts in operation and uh I I on one of my other shows trust and Estates weekly I talked about how probate courts operate and how frust ating it is in many cases um and we as Citizens need to know these things so that we can seek proper
35:39 change um and for example the courts in LA county are wildly over busy there aren't nearly enough judges especially enough experience judges to process the cases and so a lot of times what happens is the case out of so there may be a What's called the Cal well those the there's What's called the calendar that's the cases um uh you know set to be heard um and on it usually it's I mean not
36:15 usually it's not those aren't the cases that are being tried but there's different things motions and petitions and that sort of thing that need to be heard before the cases go to trial It's Not Unusual for or for example in in Probate Court the 8:30 calendar which runs from 8:30 to 9:30 at least it's supposed to to have 30 plus cases to be called now there's no way a judge can handle 30 plus cases in two hours in any meaningful way especially because the
36:51 judge doesn't have a full hour so the the uh people have to check in with the clerk the clerk has to explain the rules and the the cases have to be called so what it really comes down to is um typically half or more of the cases get continued which means the hearing is put off for a later date and that's why it takes so long for cases to be resolved here in Los Angeles County so it's very very frustrating but I think most people
37:28 have no idea what goes on really what really goes on in a courtroom because they they've never been involved in the court system and better to be involved as a juror than as a litigant or worse yet a criminal defendant you know God forbid so to really understand uh the our legal system I think it's important that we serve on a jury if if we can unless there's a a case of genuine hardship to be willing
38:03 to serve on jury duty and to convey that uh to the lawyers and the judge if if we're uh going through the jury selection process we need to know those things one one more here so what's interesting is you know people will say well the United States is a very litigious society and the the fact of the matter is that has been the case essentially
38:39 since our founding so back in colonial America one of the favorite things for people to do for recreation was to sit in a court and listen to cases being heard right that was sort of you know tell television of its time obviously it's not television but it it maybe theater of its time right that's how but the difference is what they were seeing was was the actual process not what we see which is the television or movie process right and
39:16 and so there's a big big big big difference between the knowledge that people had 200 to 300 years ago and what they have and what we have now in terms of of the reality of how the legal system works so I think that's that's important too a third thing that's important is for us to do things commun communally that are meaningful to serve on a jury means that you are working with your
39:52 fellow citizens in the very important matter of rendering Justice what do we do in our daytoday lives that are so important on a communal basis now we may go to church or synagogue we may be involved in some sort of Civic organization that uh you know provides social services or uh you know services to youth or whatever and I'm not I'm not minimizing those at all but for example
40:29 if we're serving on a criminal jury here in California we're basically deciding on whether someone's going to be incarcerated or or stay free um California doesn't have a death penalty but for example in Texas um jurors are literally deciding whether a person if if the person is on trial let's say for for murder whether that person is going to you know be convicted and therefore and there and potentially live or die and so participating in these uh the
41:04 these communal decisions is is critically important um and and so that's that's the third reason why uh I I think that it's important to serve on jury duty and the fourth one and and this is my last one is I I do think it's important for us to really feel like we have a stake in what happens in our communities most of us are not going to be an elected official we're not going to serve in the
41:39 government um we may get a parking ticket or something like that we may have to go renew our driver's license or our registration of the DMV and so we have contact with the government but uh we're not really a participant in the governance of our community and and being on jury duty is an opportunity to be involved in the governance of our community and by extension our country and that's I think
42:15 something important for everybody um and and and for all of those reasons um like I said even though on one hand I was kind of relieved I didn't get selected I was also disappointed because I felt like um you know as much as I've you know I've I've served in the military and and and i' I've been involved with a lot of nonprofits and done a lot of communal service work and such this was another way for me to fulfill my duty to my fellow citizens and my community and you know look I don't
42:51 hering myself for not getting chosen it wasn't in my uh you know power to be chosen or not uh but you know I am a little bit uh disappointed that I that I didn't give that that opportunity and I think that in the end as long as we are legitimately ready to serve even if we don't end up being impanel as a juror still we can walk away with a sense that we did our duty we participated we were
43:26 involved with our community and we fulfilled Our obligation as Citizens um in in in our country and residence in our local community and so you know food for thought and and Food For Thought often is best pondered over a cocktail I tell you Rosemary smells so good I just love the smell of Rosemary uh so um maybe you'll give some thought to how
44:04 you think about jury duty and if you do get summoned maybe you'll approach it differently than you would have had you not watch this show so uh if if I've had a a positive impact on you then um I then you know that makes me feel like what I've done is is is worthwhile and and by the way if you think about it and you still end up disagreeing with me hey you know good good for you that you you thought about
44:39 it and and at least considered uh another point of view can't really in the end can't ask for for for more than an open hearing um even even if I haven't convinced you so the Sun is down here and uh you know we're heading heading into the evening it's Thursday tomorrow is Friday last day of the week and and into for me The Jewish Sabbath starts at sundown on Friday and into Saturday and uh it's a time when I turn off all the electronics I don't answer
45:16 the phone I don't drive in a car uh it's just an opportunity to relax to connect with God to have some nice food and and uh and and recharge um for for the week to come so uh if if if I can offer you a blessing it it it is that that blessing of Peace the blessing of shalom it's called in Hebrew really shalom means wholeness um people say it means hello and goodbye and peace really what it means is wholeness and if we have if we feel
45:52 whole then we will then we are at peace so may you have Shalom this evening and and and tomorrow and into the weekend enjoy time with with family and friends um if you're struggling because of the fires here in the greater LA area um you know God bless you I I um I I I hope that you are safe and um and um maybe even beginning uh to recover from the tragedy of of what you've experienced so I thank you you so much
46:27 for joining me had a number of live viewers it's always a treat um you know what I didn't check to see I don't think I had any comments did I nope so always know that if you want to make a comment you can no matter which social media platform you're on uh restream Aggregates the comments over here I'm pointing to the part of the screen where I can see comments come up always like to hear from you and uh wishing you a wonderful evening and and rest of the week and signing off as I always do Marie darling you are my bell courage at
47:05 all times my friends