I got another jury duty summons and made arrangements to take time off work and get a dogsitter. I\u2019m glad to do my civic duty, but it\u2019s always so inconvenient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I called Sunday night and Monday night as well and did not need to report – but I got a text message as I was leaving work on Tuesday that I needed to report in on Wednesday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And of course, the next morning was busy between trying to get ready and the dogs having issues. I had planned out my route and parking based on usual traffic and unusual detours and arrived at the court house well before the 8:00 start time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I breezed through the metal detector, but nearly lost a ring. (The security guard brought it to me in the jury room.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had my paperwork with me as instructed and went right up to the scanner machine to have my barcode scanned to check-in. Easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though, I was the only one that thought so. Everyone else that came in for groups 1 through and including 8 struggled with one task or another. Several people were there on the wrong day, one woman tried to get out of jury duty that morning, and no one understood the parking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was after 8:00 and people were still arriving – I would have died to be late – and one of the clerks gave her intro spiel. Which was the same info as on the paperwork, but whatever. I finished my pop-tart and we settled in to wait. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At 8:30 another clerk came to get prospective jury members. We were told to line up in order of being called and to remember our numbers. But, then didn\u2019t tell us our numbers – inconveniently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We managed to stay in line in order and then lined up in the hallway. A few of us asked our numbers and we got that figured out – but then got yelled at by a guard to move out of the way as they transferred prisoners down the hallway. But the clerk had told us not to move – so, it was a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We stayed in line as they led us out of the building and down the block to the other, newer, building. Seems like that hadn’t been thought out well, but they had a process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least it was a nice day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once in the new building we breezed through the metal detector and half of us crowded into the elevator for the first trip. After we were all on the same floor again we were escorted to the jury waiting room. The clerk offered us doughnuts and said they might still settle – but otherwise we\u2019d be called into the voir dire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then it was time to go into the courtroom. We were lined up again and marched down the hall and assigned seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The judge introduced herself and the attorneys introduced themselves too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The judge – who I think I voted for, actually – explained the rules and asked a few general questions. Then began a deeply cringy voir dire as the attorneys started to ask us questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a couple of minutes it was clear that they both tried to steer us into answering questions in a particular way – to then encourage us to hold the \u201cright\u201d opinion as much as weed out those with extreme views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The public defender twisted my words on a question and though I was against what he was asking at the time he made it sound like I was strongly agreeing with him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were both annoying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As was one woman in the back who wouldn\u2019t speak above a stage whisper and the guy next to me who belted out staccato answers to every question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the voir dire was done they had a sidebar and then read the names of people who were supposed to stay. They got their jury well before they got to me and I was not called. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I gathered up my stuff and headed out – retracing my steps back to my car and then going on into work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I worked the day, checked the website again that night – but my service was essentially done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It might have been an interesting case – angry drunk white guy vs. police with maybe excessive force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the highlight was while we were waiting to go into the courtroom I had a captive audience for some paper folding. I like to think it made the time go a little easier for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, that was the extent of my jury duty.\u00a0 I\u2019m off the hook again for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yesterday, I got a letter in the mail from the office of the judge who had presided at the trial. I am not afraid to admit I had a strong moment of panic and nearly cut myself on the scissors I used to wrench open the envelope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I assumed, of course, that I had somehow SCREWED UP (\u2122) and that I should immediately drive myself to jail to be arrested forever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which might have been overthinking it a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, it was a nice thank you (form) letter from the judge\u00a0 She noted that I might be disappointed to have been dismissed from the jury, but being a part of this was an important contribution to the justice system.\u00a0 I\u2019m paraphrasing a bit – and I was certainly not disappointed to have been dismissed. A half-day of sitting around not working in the middle of the week was fine by me – but I’m glad that’s all it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I toyed with the idea of emailing the judge to see if I could learn the outcome – this was an option presented by the bailiff the last time I was brought in and dismissed from the voir dire – but ultimately decided to let it go.\u00a0\u00a0Literally not my business and my curiosity is not that morbid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, no need to panic – it was just a nice thank you note.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I got another jury duty summons and made arrangements to take time off work and get a dogsitter. I\u2019m glad to do my civic duty, but it\u2019s always so inconvenient. I called Sunday night and Monday night as well and did not need to report – but I got a text message as I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"1","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3350"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3356,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3350\/revisions\/3356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}