jury duty

monday:

so, you remember that jury summons i got a couple weeks ago??

well, i went today....they have a new system: you sit in the assembly room for hours, then a court clerk & a judge come in & they each give you a "feel good speech" telling you how honored they are that you showed up for jury duty!!!

then you wait about another hour. then they put you in groups & haul you to another assembly room. then they put you in random numerical order & haul you to a court room. then they put you in 3 lines. #'s 1-24 go into the courtroom & sit on the right. #'s 25-48 sit on the left. #'s 49 through 61 sit in the jury box. i was #51 so for the 1st time in the many times i've had a jury summons, i got to sit in the jury box!!!! it's pretty cool!!!

then the judge comes in & says "we're trying to streamline this & lessen the length of the process so rather than all the attorneys asking all of y'all a bunch of questions, you have to fill out this 8 page questionnaire. then the attorneys will review the questionnaires & choose the jurors from there." then we spend the next hour filling out the questionnaire. we turn them in by sections & the bailiff checks over each one.

about 30 minutes later the judge comes back & says, "EVERYONE is required to be here tomorrow morning at 8:45; if you are not here by 9am, we will send a sheriff in a black uniform with a gun to get you.

HOWEVER, if you receive a phone call from the court tonight by 7pm, that means that you have been dismissed or disqualified & you do not need to come in the morning!" the bailiff gives us all final instructions, parking validations for the discounted rate for today & lets us loose into rush hour traffic.

i DID NOT get a call from the court tonight. — feeling meh. :(

tuesday:

have to be downtown by 8:45 & since traffic could be light & i'll fly, or backed up liked a clogged drain & i face the chance of being late, i leave at 6:30. took longer to get from my house to i-10 down hwy. 6 than it did to fly on i-10 to downtown! drove around downtown a little while to waste time & still got to the parking garage at 7:12. made a bunch of phone calls then went into the courthouse @ 8:40.

there's only a handful of jurors -- we're thinking, "OH NO - they called all the other people & we're it." there was about 20 of us out of the 61. at 9am more showed up. at 9:30 there were a BUNCH of us -- someone asked the bailiff how many people got called. she said "NONE". 9:45 we're still waiting for 4 people. they won't do anything til those 4 people get here. we waited til 10:30 for those 4 (*insert bad word here*) people to show up! we were not happy -- especially when they didn't get yelled at, punished or anything!!! but why did WE, the ones who were ON TIME, have to be punished by not getting started? i think those 4 should have been mandatorily picked for the jury!!! but none of them were!!!!

great thing you taught us today, court system -- the next time any of these particular 61 people are called for jury duty, i'll bet they're all either late or just don't show.

except for ME -- i'll be there on time, because with MY LUCK, i'd be the one the sheriff comes with his black uniform & gun to get!! (and as long as he looks like sam elliott, i don't think i'll mind!!!!!)


well, it was a long day & even with those questionnaires, they asked tons of questions. most of the people who ended up getting picked were people who had reasons why they felt they couldn't serve on the jury for the next 2+ weeks. one lady said she was traveling next monday to england to see her husband who would be on repat from australia. she hasn't seen him in 6 months! she was the 2nd one picked!!!! she was NOT a happy juror!!!!

one guy, juror #1, looked EXACTLY EXACTLY like james brolin!!!!!!!!!!!!! people couldn't stop staring at him!!!!! (and he kept walking up & down the hall, so you couldn't miss him!!!!)

(only make his face a little thinner & his hair more darker grey & his face a little more wrinkly!!!!!)

i answered a couple questions. i guess i said the right - or wrong - answers, because i didn't get picked!!!! it would have been fun to be on a jury, but i sure didn't want to have to drive downtown & park/pay for parking for 2+ weeks!!!!!

wednesday morning one of my "office sons" came rushing into my office, said nothing, gave me the biggest bear hug ever!!!! then he said, "don't ever go on jury duty again; we need you here." then he turned & left!!!

it's nice to be needed.