...And Justice For All

Well, today I was forced to take part in one of the least favorite services for our government - the dreaded jury duty!

Normally, I wouldn't have really minded too much, because essentially it's a long day of waiting, and I get a good bit of reading done. Today wasn't really any different in that respect, except for the fact that I haven't had to do this on my current schedule.

What the day boiled down to was me waking up on Monday at 2:45pm, and not getting any sleep until 4:45pm Tuesday. The 26 hour day is not something that I recommend. In the days of my youth I've done longer, but it was always for a good cause, or, more likely, a good time. Now that I'm old, and the fact that my "day+" began with a full shift at both of my jobs, it was that much more interesting.

I was still awake enough that I never nodded, even though it was getting really difficult not to towards the afternoon. I should have been wide awake, since waiting in a jury selection room is such gripping stuff, and besides - there were TV's with soap operas and talk shows on too! (with the volume at maximum annoyance level - just loud enough that you can hear it, but not loud enough to actually be able to make out any of the words).

I was amazed at how dumb people are. Not that I don't spend a good portion of my day doing that, but we're talking rare specimens here. Of the 189 people that showed up, about 75% of them were unable to correctly fill out the small questionaire attached to the summons. This form included such doozies as "employer" and "home phone". I lucked out, and didn't have to have my name called to come fix anything, but I'm going to go snag a jury summons for dummies book just to be safe for next time.

Once you were called to come fix the form you had neglected to correctly complete, you were to put it face down in a tray on the tables at the front of the room. There were people that sat back down with their form in hand, ones that tried to hand it over to the orientation speaker, others that started to take it out to the front desk, a bunch that just sort of wandered around looking lost in a 3' circle until someone else put theirs where it belonged.

The topper on this was that the speaker was amazingly thorough, and obviously has been through this sea of Mensa before. She litterally repeated all important points of her speech three times. Even with those precautions, we were still quite a collective.

I had a comedian bailiff for the first trial I was pulled upstairs for. He was quite good. The judge looked like Tom Kinney, and I was excused from that trial. It was for a bunch of drug charges, as we were in the courthouse on "criminal case" Tuesday apparently.

Lunch was supposed to be around 1pm, but we had an announcement that there was only one trial left for the day(the calendar had begun with 27) and if we waited a little beyond 1pm, we may just be able to go home. That turned out to be a cruel jest, especially for someone as eager for sleep as myself. We were informed at 2:15pm that selection had not been made, and we were not only going to have a shortened lunch hour, but we would need to report up in the courtroom afterwards.

I struck out to Market Street, and snagged a slice of pizza and a Tastycake because you need organic healthfood when you're preparing your mind for serving the judiciary system.

Up to the second courtroom, without a cool bailiff, and without a celebrity clone judge either. I ended up being excused from that trial as well, which was another drug case. I was done with that at 3:15pm

Knowing that I was "technically" done for the day then, it was all the more nerve-wracking to remain in the jury selection room until 4:30pm, when we were finally allowed to go home.

In hindsight, I suppose it was my fault. Towards the end, I was starting to blur words together when I was trying to read. I decided that if I got up, and went into the back room with the vending machines and few PC's for internet surfing, that would cause things to be set into motion.

It's the same uncanny effect that I have on traffic, in that in a jam of any sort, no matter what lane I'm in will invariably become the slowest. I have proven this in a double-blind study, even though it was hard to explain the blindfolds to the police officer at the time.

This mutant ability to set things into motion at inopportune times is something that I've learned to twist to my advantage in the past. When someone is running late, whether I'm entertaining, or being picked up for any reason, I will begin some involved task, and it summons the tardy party almost instantly.

In my defense for recalcitrance today, I can only say that I was quite fatigued, and didn't think of going to check my email sooner.

The good news is that the earliest I'll get summoned again is 2 years from now.

The bad news is that I didn't get chosen for a jury.

I don't know why, but whenever I come to the sidebar review with the judge, and explain that I have an Old Testament sense of justice, and would enjoy punishing the wicked, I never seem to get to stick around...