Weekend Plans Post: The only thing worse than Jury Duty
In the past, I used to get summons for jury duty within two months of a ticket/warning related incident. Like, I get pulled over for going 63 in a 55… I pay the ticket and, three months later: Jury Duty. I get pulled over on a street that has recently had its speed reduced from 40 per hour to 30 per hour and get let off with a warning. Two months later: Jury Duty. I Chicagoed a stop sign when out to lunch with my boss in the car. He is about 10 years younger than me and he made noises about how I was gonna get in trouble… and I got let off with a warning and he looked at me with the expression “WHAT JUST HAPPENED?”
“It’s not that great,” I told him. “I’m going to get jury duty in a couple of months.” Sure enough: I did.
Well, my lead foot has been tempered by age. I now know that the stop sign is at that three-way stop. I haven’t gotten a citation in years. Not even for parking!
And so I was surprised when I got my jury duty summons last month.
I talked to HR and they told me that they had this sort of thing down flat, so don’t worry about it. I talked to my seven bosses and they all told me their jury duty stories and I told them mine, everybody laughed, I quietly waited for the day before.
The form has a phone number, you see. It says “Call this number the night before and listen to the recorded message for reporting information (by juror number) and parking info.”
So I called the night before. My number was something like 2008. The recording said “All jurors between the numbers of 1920 and 2000 need to show up and report.”
My heart leapt in my chest. Hurray! I can just do my dang job! The message continued: “All jurors between the numbers of 2001 and 2080 are on call. You are not required to show up but, instead, to call at 11:30 AM tomorrow and listen to the message. Do not call before 11:30 as the message will not have changed. You are not being called in to jury duty so your employer will have no obligation to pay you. You will need to get here within an hour if you are called in.”
Wait, what? So I called in to work and said “I’m going to need to work from home for the morning.” I did zoom meetings, I did paperwork, I worked on some scripts and tightened them up. I did phone support. And then, at 11:30, I called and the message said “No jurors need to come in. Your obligation has been met.” So then I went in to work.
And that was more irritating than if I had been called in. I preferred the old way where I’d just show up, be thanked a dozen times, and then be told to go home.
In any case, this weekend is the one where I recover from the surprisingly high-stress week. The gaming group, normally on Saturday, is cancelled this weekend and so the weekend yawns before me. Maybe I’ll go to Costco. See if I can’t do a 5K on Sunday if the weather is right.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is one of the no attribute required photos we’ve got in the archive.)
You know, it’s interesting. I’ve only ever been called in once. I sat through jury selection. It took the better part of a day. I’ve never been called since then, and that was maybe 20 years ago. The case was “driving while license suspended”. The defendant was representing himself and exercising his right to a trial for this kind of case.
In other words, an idiot. I didn’t get the chance to tell the judge this, though as I never got to the jury box to be questioned. Just listened to a bunch of other people and then went home.Report
It was after a speeding ticket, wasn’t it?Report
Hmm, it was a long time ago, I don’t really remember. However, it was a Superior Court, thus a county thing. None of my speeding tickets were in that county. In that county I have been cited for an illegal turn, failure to yield to pedestrians, and driving in a bike lane. But never for speeding. And all those tickets were, as best I remember, after being called in.Report
You may be on to something. I have a grand total of zero tickets and zero jury duty summons.Report
I was called once, years ago. It was not after any kind of a traffic infraction. Here, at that time, jury duty meant you were on-call for THREE MONTHS. Yes, three months of calling every evening before a weekday and hoping your number wasn’t up.
It was at the start of spring semester. I was teaching an 8 am soils class. I am the only person in my department who can teach soils. Someone suggested I try for a deferral until the summer. I called the local judge, he deferred me. But I still had to call in every day that entire summer. I had to go IN to the courthouse twice, made a grand total of $40, but never got put on a jury. (I was also teaching that summer but had someone who was supposed to cover for me if I got on a jury).
One of the times I was called in the defendant showed up that morning and plead out. The other one, I wasn’t picked, and I was months later told by the ADA (who I knew slightly at that time) that I was lucky I had not been picked as it was apparently a particularly nasty sex-abuse-of-a-minor case.
I also know people who were called for Grand Juries and had to go to a courthouse an hour away for their service. That would really suck – I don’t think you get reimbursed travel costs.Report
That sucks even more than my experience sucked. I only lost a day. You lost a dang season.
Being called in and being told to go home was as good as could be expected. Being called in and being told WAIT NO CALL IN AGAIN TOMORROW was something that sucked… but, seriously, I absorbed it.
Doing that for a season? Jeez louise. I’d have to buy brownies for three different departments.
ONCE A MONTH!Report
I was called about 6 years ago, I think.
Went in. Had to sit around in the court room all day. Got dismissed by the prosecution because I said I would be more skeptical of testimony from a cop than from a civilian.
Thing was I feel a twinge about not saying I should be disqualified because I just looked at the defendant and was absolutely convinced he did it. It was a serious crime, too, and like I’m not gonna lie and say that on top of all the other reasons not to want to sit on a jury the thought of hearing several days of detailed testimony about a case of sexual assault on a minor was not really something I wanted to do.
Still have no idea what it is about it that made me so sure he was guilty, and because I couldn’t put my finger on it I couldn’t figure out how to say it when I was asked if there was any reason I couldn’t listen fairly.
The thing about being more skeptical of a cop’s testimony isn’t like an ACAB thing either. It’s just that they testify in court regularly as part of their job, and thus are likely to be more polished, more comfortable, and more nervous, all of which people tend to interpret as signs of credibility, and I’d be concerned I was unconsciously over-weighting their testimony otherwise.Report
I wonder whether “I just think he looks guilty” would be taken seriously, or just assumed to be a particularly half-assed attempt to get out of jury duty.
Maybe the lawyer for the defense would actually prefer someone who’s biased but self-aware to someone who’s possibly just as biased but not admitting it.Report
I was called once on a DUI case, an attorney who’d refused a BAC test. I recalled F. Lee Bailey doing the same thing, figuring he’d be better off trying to persuade a jury than have hard evidence against him (it worked), When it was my turn to answer “Can you be objective?”, I asked to approach, so as not to pollute the rest of the pool. I told the judge and both sets of lawyers that story, and that I suspected this defendant of doing the same. The judge asked if I could put that aside and listen to the evidence. I said I thought so, and both lawyers accepted that and didn’t boot me.
After hearing all the evidence, I decided I’d been right in the first place, and we found her guilty.Report
I was called a few times in my home town, but only once actually made it into a courtroom to go through the selection process. It was a drug case. When I was questioned in the box and asked whether I could do my duty, I honestly said that I did not feel that I could, in good conscience, send somebody to prison for using drugs. I was not called. Many of the other potential jurists thought I was just trying to get out of serving, which was not true.
Regarding weekend plans, now that I am actually a homeowner, it makes more sense to do things like “plant flowers” and “plant a fruit tree” since I am more likely to get the benefit in the future. Tomorrow, we are going to a nursery to pick out some things. We want some flowers to attract hummingbirds, my wife wants gardenias, and I am fond of azaleas. I might plant a peach tree as well, if we can figure out a good spot for it.Report