"Injurious Duty" by Troy H. Cheek on Jan 07, 2008
I got a summons for jury duty the other day. Oh, it was politely worded, full of terms like "choice" and "opportunity" and "option" and I forget what else, but it also included "summons" a time or two. As I keep trying to explain to my employers every time the employee benefits package gets changed, it's not a "choice" unless I have say in the matter. In this case, I had the opportunity to show up at the new Hall of Justice and choose to serve on a jury. Failure to do so could result in jail time. Some choice, huh?
I almost missed the great Hall of Justice part. The last I heard just a few months ago was that the Hall of Justice was a few years and a few hundred thousand dollars away from being ready to open. I expected to have to go to the old courthouse where I have gone many a time in years past. Luckily, I had to double check the date and just happened to notice the different address, complete with driving directions.
To steal a line from Foxworthy, if directions to jury duty include the words "turn off the paved road," you might be a Redneck.
I found the Hall of Justice easily enough, right there behind the co-op. I was kind of disappointed that it didn't look like this. It seemed very nice. It had plenty of parking, unlike the old courthouse, where you were likely to get towed or ticketed if you parked within walking distance. This could easily turn trying to beat a parking ticket into an unending recursive loop. "Yes, your Honor. I'm here to argue the parking ticket I received the last time I appeared before you to argue a parking ticket, which I received the previous time I appeared before you to argue a parking ticket."
The only down side was that, if comments by the staff are taken at face value, the third door on the right opened into the restrooms, while the fourth door on the right opened into the jail cells. Likewise, once inside the courtroom, one of the unmarked doors leads to the jury deliberation room. The other unmarked door leads to the interrogation room.
According to local legends, even at the old jail where "public" areas and prisoner areas were separated by steel doors, occasionally there would be visitors, people dropping by to pay fines, and even people coming in to file complaints who would accidentally end up in cells and be held for days until somebody believed them and actually checked the records to see if they were supposed to be in there to begin with. I can see that this new layout isn't going to make matters any simpler.
Also according to local legends, jury pools are selected from voting records. If you don't register to vote, you never get called to serve on a jury. Luckily, not registering to vote doesn't prevent you from voting around here. However, this legend is incorrect. They actually select jury pools from driver license records and vehicle registration records. This gets pretty much every adult in the county. Also, since we don't require vehicle emissions testing, it also gets pretty much every adult in the surrounding counties as well.
I had to take part of a day off from work to go in for jury selection. My boss begrudged giving me the time off, saying I was causing an undue hardship on the department by not working my whole shift. I told him that he could probably get me out of jury duty if he wrote a letter to the judge explaining that hardship, but then he said he wasn't going to lie just to get me out of jury duty.
I showed up on time and found a seat in the courtroom. Being a Baptist, I sat in the back row. Other Baptists filed in behind me and, by the time the judge showed up, the pews were mostly full and even had a scattering of people on the front row.
The judge.... How does one say these things and not sound disrespectful? If Minnie Pearl had a younger, less educated cousin back at Grinder's Switch, this would be her. Seriously, the judge sounded like she was doing an intentionally bad MP impersonation the whole time. I'm not sure if she was making fun of us, trying to put us at ease, or really does talk like that at home.
The first thing Judge Minnie did was to kick out all the people who register their vehicles in our county but actually pay property taxes in another, that ultimately being the deciding factor on whether or not you're supposed to report for jury duty. That being the case, I wonder why they don't select jury pools from property tax records in the first place.
The second thing she did was explain why there were over a hundred of us when the average jury is twelve jurors and two alternates. In our county, we don't send out summons for every case that goes to trial. Instead, we send out summons once or twice a year and divide everyone who shows up into panels who will later serve at multiple trials. You're given a list of trial dates, then it's your responsibility to call in the night before to see if they need your particular panel on that particular date.
I've been (un)lucky in that most of the time I've been told not to come in, or I've not been chosen as a juror or alternate when I have gone in. Once or twice, one or more principles failed to show up. Any of which means that I've taken a day off from work for nothing. That isn't so bad, as sometimes that's the only way I can get a day off.
Judge Minnie told us she was giving us a break and asked for volunteers. She explained how we needed about a hundred people to fill all the panels, so we could look around and figure the odds of getting all the panels filled before a particular name was called, or everyone who actually wanted to serve on a jury panel could form a double line up front. That way, she could save all the whiners who wanted to try to weasel their ways out of jury duty until last. The ones that were willing could get assigned to a panel and go on home.
I held back for a while, saw that we'd run out of jurors way before we ran out of panels, and finally volunteered just to get back home.
Why so many panels? Well, as Judge Minnie put it, "This ain't New York, y'all! Yah cain't swing a dead cat without hitting a relative in this county. Half of y'all are in the same family, and the other half are related to the people who'll be on trial. Ah have to start with a hundred of y'uns and bring you back half a dozen times just so Ah can find enough for each trial."
Ah, yes. There's nothing like being told you're an inbred hick by a woman who sounds just like Minnie Pearl to spur you to do your civic duty.
