YYYYYyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaahhhhhhoooooooooooooo!

“We thank you for taking your civic duty seriously but the cases are going to be settled without juries so you are all finished with your service and free to go. Your check is in the mail.” Or something like that. After only a half hour of sitting around waiting, no less.

Quite painless, actually. Even though the process for getting in to the courthouse was virtually identical to the process for getting through airport security, minus the boarding pass. Take your shoes off and put them and all the rest of your cosmic debris in a bin and pass it and yourself through the screener. But I’m an old hand at putting things in bins now, so it was a piece of cake.

I had been a little worried. I just do not have time to sit on a jury this week. I got there fifteen minutes early, at 1 PM, and some of the jurors from the morning pool were still there. It looked like it had been a long morning and that didn’t seem like a good sign. After we checked in, we were told that there were two cases ready to go on the docket, domestic violence and trespassing. There weren’t really a whole lot of people in the room and I figured there was a good chance I’d have to serve or at least get interrogated as a potential juror.

The clerk told us we’d probably be called into the courtroom by about 3:30. I settled down into a back seat with my Macbook and, after figuring out that there was no waaaaarless access, at least not any waaaarless that I could access, I started chipping away some more at my current Photoshop project, one I’ve been struggling with (long, boring story).

It was 2 PM when the judge came in and announced that we were excused. I am happy. I do not have time this week to hang around a courthouse. Did I say that already? Sorry. And, as a bonus, the announcement came just as I had made a rather major breakthrough on my project. Except that now I’m stuck again. Sigh. Onward.

3 Responses to “YYYYYyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaahhhhhhoooooooooooooo!”

  1. Mark Says:

    I have often wondered why in 34 years I have never been even asked to serve on a jury. My last name, Axe, has not exempted other similarly named family members in other states. I do live in Missouri though.

  2. kayak woman Says:

    As far as I know, it is completely random. I’ve been called twice in A2 (both in the last 5 years) and several times a million years ago when my address was still my parents’. The GG has *never* been called. Elizabeth was called two weeks after she left for Spain. That was a mess and I think out-of-town college students should be excused with no fuss. They have too much to have to worry about traveling home and missing school.

    I do know that within the last 15-20 years, Michigan decided to start drawing voters from the pool of citizens with driver’s licenses, rather than just those registered to vote. A much larger pool.

    I’ve never served on a jury. Apparently, the mere presence of waiting jurors in the building will influence a lot of people to settle before a judge or even out of court if possible. Someday it might be an interesting experience but this week, as a full-time student, it would just put me behind and potentially ruin my GPA. No thanks.

  3. jane Says:

    I served on a jury back in 1981. I got my first summons when I was at Tech (sent to my A2 address) and they readily moved me to the summer, but not fully excused. I was picked, served, deliberated for a couple days, (including lunch at the Old German), found the guy guilty. The judge asked us to stay afterwards – I thought we were in some kind of trouble! Cuz I was 19 and if an authority figure asks you to stay, you’re probably in trouble. Anyway he came in to tell us that he thought we made the right decision, and also to tell us that there had been a fight between family members that went from the courtroom out into the hallway when we had been in our secret little back room. THAT was exciting news! So it was a week out of my life, doing my civic duty, seeing the justice system in action. $15/day.

    I’ve never been called back since then. I did have a friend who was called sometime in the last year. She was completely dreading it. She walked downtown to avoid the parking hassles, got into the room only to find a friend who was also there – while they’re catching up they are told that they’re excused and the two of them go have a yummy breakfast together! So the moral of the story is that sometimes it’s good to get called for jury duty.