2004.07.14
Jury Duty
So I am sitting across the street from the Superior Court of San Francisco on lunch break doing my civic duty. Jury Duty… I am insanely bored.
Jury duty seems to require a lot of waiting around, and not in comfy chairs. It would be one thing if they at least had couches (or better, a bed!) for you while you wait to hear your name in roll call or for your group to be sent off to a court. Instead they have these aweful plastic chairs from the 70s in colors from that era: orange, brown and mustard yellow. All of them stained with the ages and probably not cleaned since aquisition.
They did have a clever video introduction produced to inspire more civic evangelism than the poor workers there feel. No wonder they made the video; if the person who did the roll call were in charge of making us feel like we should be happy being there they’d have to hand out razor blades.
I’ll have to post this later in the day (though I will date it to the correct time) since I’ve no internet connection. Here in the cafe near the court house there’s an open WiFi, but whoever owns it turned off the actual internet connection. Their base station is wide open, though, and if I were feeling particularly malicious I could change the name or password protect it so they can’t even get into it. But I’m not mean (that way) so I’ll just begrudge them not leaving the lights on.
(later)
The day is over and I am free till next year. I realize in hindsight that my previous writing was a bit cavalier. Not that I regret that, but I do want to say that while it is sometimes inconvenient doing my civic duty, I do believe it is very important for our society. Between that and voting there isn’t much more we can do to claim the system as our own so it’s important we, as citizens, do both.
I am not looking forward to catching up on everything at work, though!
6 Comments Categorized: life rights san francisco
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6 Responses to “Jury Duty”
- skooz says (January 1st, 1970 at 08:00:00 )
I feel your pain
I used to get called every year for jury duty. No one else in the family was ever called, but every September I got my summons like clockwork.
My last year in college though, I went to a friends house the night before jury duty. I figured it would be like all the other times and I would sit in the jury room all day, bored to death. So I got really stoned and played D&D with the friend and his room mate until I staggered out of the apartment at 6 AM (after smoking some more) to do my civic duty. Got to the courthouse, still happy as a clam and got sent right into a courtroom for jury selection on a murder trial. I could not eat, drink or sleep the whole day. In the end I wasn’t chosen for the jury but rather was dismissed at 4 PM with a $17 check and the thanks of the court for showing up. It was the longest day in human history.- Sean says (January 1st, 1970 at 08:00:00 )
When I lived in Chicago, I just used to check the box on the questionaire that said, more or less, “I know a cop.”. Why didn’t you do the same? Always worked for me. In California, however, not so much. You practically have to *be* a peace officer (or really, really old) to be automatically excuesd.
- dugh says (January 1st, 1970 at 08:00:00 )
suddenly…
i feel better about my day!- skooz says (January 1st, 1970 at 08:00:00 )
You don’t get the question anymore until you are in a courtroom and even then you have to sit through the other people answering questions. You are called as a group and the extras leave as a group. It is really quite clever of them to think this up. It only took them about 100 years…
- dugh says (January 1st, 1970 at 08:00:00 )
actually there is a form you have to fill out and it does ask if you are an officer of the law as an option to get out of the jury duty. among the other questions are not speaking english, being a foreign resident, a convicted felon, and a few other things.
i think most states use the group method now, but each state sets its own process for selection.
- douglas.nerad » Being on Jury Duty Selection says (March 19th, 2008 at 18:25:25 )
[...] but I get to go back in tomorrow for the jury finalization. Last time I pulled jury duty I was bored out of my mind. This time not so much. Listening to the questions asked of each juror and seeing which ones are [...]
