Jury Duty

After deferring twice (legit school reasons) I finally served my first-ever day of jury duty! Once I got over the fact that I would be missing an exam and having to reschedule said exam, I was somewhat excited about actually serving! This excitement lasted for the first 4 hours...as they split us up into panels, filtered out those ineligible jurors, and asked us the general questions.

here's how my first 4 hrs were spent...
8am arrive at courthouse
8:15 am wait
8:45 am file into courtroom
9:00am shuffle people around into "panels"
9:30 am judge arrives
10:00am weeding out the folks who really don't want to be there!
10:30 am start asking question

As a member of the 1st panel I was one of the few interviewed before 1:00pm. The judge let everyone go for lunch...but for some reason asked panel 1 to return at 2pm. Let's face it, the guy has probably been around for how many jury selections...maybe a couple hundred! I find it hard to believe that he truly thought they would be done interviewing the rest of the jurors by 2pm...especially when he saw that morning that it took 2 hrs for the 3 lawyers to go through 12 of us!

So I returned at 2pm...without any reading materials (as requested by the court)...and sat. Not only did we sit, with nothing to do for 4 hours...we sat in a separate room. The least they could have done would be to sit us in the courtroom so that we could entertain ourselves with the other people's stories! Sitting in that room with 30-some people, forced you to sleep or make small-talk...and you know how much I love small-talk!

Finally at 6pm! Yes, 6pm...apparently the 5:00 rule does not pertain in the courtroom...the judge called us back in for "jury strike." The jurors were joking as we waited that we should go on "strike" since pay is only $25/day...but the thing that got me was you get paid if you stay for the first 1hr or the entire 8hrs!!!

We filed back into the courtroom, I must say that by this point I felt that I had put so much in to the process, I actually wanted to be chosen for the jury!!! But after 20 minutes of paper being passed back and forth, I found out I wasn't picked...I have a feeling it was because one of the attorneys new me as a tech at Gaines School.

I understand the process is there for a reason...but I still feel that somethings could change for the better! Like...hey, maybe we could bring books, or the judge could say come back at 3 or 4.
I must say it was a very "unique" experience...but I definitely understand why so many people attempt to get out of the dreaded jury duty...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MFebZlUJ7E