And the judge said, ``This isn't a court of justice, son, this is a court of law''

[austin_dern]

So here's how the tale of my jury duty service started: I got the summons about six weeks or so back. Maybe it was meant for my father, since we share a name and don't brook with that senior/junior stuff, but I took it since, what the heck, it'd be a week away from the office and would be commuting to a place much closer to home. Better, it turned out they wanted me to report to the county courthouse several hours later than I'd have to report to work, so this was extra sleeping-in time, shorter commute time, and all I'd have to do is decide whether someone had in fact committed a crime. Or maybe get put on a civil jury.

I was leaving my house in enough time to have a several-minutes margin just in case, and ran into the neighbor at whose driveway I park; he'd just got back from Florida so this turned into a several-minutes conversation where I kind of kept mentioning I was really glad to see him but was due at the courthouse really soon. Gradually I got away and worried I as going to be late, but I got to the juror assembly room on the dot.

We waited, and a woman came in to say they were going to be empaneling a jury for one civil trial today, and showed a fifteen-minute video about what to expect from jury duty. It was produced by the state bar association and had no video clips from any movies, Sidney Lumet or otherwise, but it did have one attorney portrayed by a guy who could inspire me to want to punch him just by the way he said the witness's name. And his witness!. Anyway, after that, we waited a bit more and they said we could go to lunch; please report back in an hour and half.

They had brochures of local restaurants, including a guide to how to get to the basement cafe in the courthouse, which was helpfully explained as being ``presently closed''. I went to the restaurant whose fare was billed as ``lunch and dinner selections'', which was the correct way to summarize their offerings. For me it came to sushi.

On returning we waited another half-hour or so, then they turned off the TV and came in to say the parties had decided to settle. They appreciated our service and we had discharged our duty to the community; ``we'll see you in three to five years''. I must say, this was a breeze; I could have done it all week.

Of course, none of this explains why later in the afternoon I was escorted off the Funtown Pier at Seaside Heights.

Trivia: Following (some time after) a 1275 statute, defendants in English courts could freely choose to be tried by a jury, or enjoy the peine forte et dure until they changed their mind; the classic form of this would be being pressed with a gradually-increasing weight of stones. Source: 1215: The Year Of Magna Carta, Danny Danziger, John Gillingham.

Currently Reading: The Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind The World's Favorite Soft Drink, Michael Blanding.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

One of my earlier Jury duty services was very similar, except that it took them until the second day to settle.

I also remember very clearly that one man was dismissed from the jury pool because he'd sold the defendant a car.

--Chi

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Once they announced they were seating only one jury, and that it was for a civil trial, I got to feeling pretty confident that I was going home. Besides that they had a hundred or so people called up (I was number 72) for one trial, my understanding is that having the start of voir dire be within one hour has a stunning power to get plaintiff and defendant to find common ground.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

I wish it was 5 years for us.... There's some graft going on in our system over here.... they don't seem to be randomizing the jury calls... they caome FAR too often, to the same people over and over...

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I'm suspicious as well. I've been summoned exactly once, in 32 years, yet I vote in every election, even the odd little off-sequence ones for municipal levies, etc.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just the nature of random draws that it's going to seem to come "too often" to some people and "not often enough" to others? Random doesn't guarantee it'll be spaced out or that everyone's frequency will be equal. I've been called more than most people I know, but I can't see any reason to assume that's anything other than the way my luck came out.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Nope. Gotta be a conspiracy.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

hehheh.... I think I agree, ...yeah, sometimes it's like they don't even check the minimum requirements, and I get more than one demand in a single year... ;P
Thanks for the comment!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Maybe they've got you confused with a wise old owl?

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

From you, it's a nice compliment... but from them, it may be flattery to get me to accede to their bidding! ;D

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Eh, so, you'd rather they call you a silly little sparrow?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

One of the secretaries at work mentioned that she got called up repeatedly because they use voter registration and property tax and driver's license and whatnot as source databases, and there were all kinds of variations in her name between all these sources. So instead of being one ``target'' she was five or six, at least until she asked the county clerk why she kept getting called up.

She was of the opinion that they should have realized there weren't multiple people with almost the same name in the house. To me, that sounds like a perfectly normal parent-child shared-address so if I were in charge of the databases I wouldn't condense them to a single person without explicit direction.

And it's really, really hard to find something that's actually random. If randomness weren't so very useful in solving problems I suspect a lot of the mathematical community would give up on the idea as a bad job.

[moxie_man]

I have yet to be summoned in my home state (knock on wood). With our small population, it's surprising.

While I was in graduate school, Texas tried to call me up every other month. I'd send them documentation I was a full-time student (which made me exempt from jury duty). After about the sixth time, they finally got the idea and stopped sending me notices.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I was called several times as a graduate student, and a few while I was in Singapore. These were taken as acceptable excuses right from the summons. I admit it crossed my mind my father might be using me as the recipient of some of his summonses, given the name confusion and that I've really never not had their address as a mail drop for me.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

How did you not tell me about the Funtown Pier business? I suppose it's because I was too busy telling you at great length about how I wrote SternLook.muf.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well ... it's a little immature but I was hoping to get one of the shocked and alarmed icons from your response, so I had to avoid saying just what I did get into before midnight, you see.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Sorry. How's this?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's just as I had hoped for, dear!

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

That one was drawn by the Sibyl, known more widely as Silverblue, in a Frithmas card around '97.