About Jury Duty

I've been called in for jury duty several times. The first few times I kept delaying it by pointing out that if I showed up for a two week trial I wouldn't be able to pay rent. Finally I could put it off no longer and I was assigned to a jury. We heard the case, deliberated, and hung on 2 out of 3 charges. There was a mistrial and I was done for a little over a year.

I was worried the cycle was starting all over again Monday, but things went fairly smoothly. I showed up at 1:30pm, the jury wrangler guy did a little speech about how things work, where to park, how much you get a day if you are selected ($17.50), and what we are supposed to do while we wait. Then he put on a video.

It was a terrible, terrible video featuring real former jurors. I guess they had trouble finding jurors who were both articulate and enjoyed their stint on a jury, because the 3 people they had talking to the camera were a disturbing combination of irritating and cheese-ball. There was one guy who was trying to say how he felt he added some common sense to his jury, but it took him 3 or 4 tries to say it. For the sake of the judicial system, I hope he was not the only bearer of sense. Maybe he just forgot to bring it with him to the filming.

Besides featuring real multiethnic jurors, they also blatantly cast a person of every race and gender* in every scene. The African-American, female judge respectfully asks the male Latin-American defense attorney to offer his closing statement to the multiethnic, Mervin's-dressy, overly-attentive jury.

The voiceover was also excellent. They used such gems as "... and we live in California, the best state in the union" and "Usually we live in a peaceful and harmonious society, but sometimes we have disputes. When such disputes arise, they must be settled with justice."

Despite all this, we, the prospective jurors, all paid attention to the video. Well, all but one short, slightly thugged-out, Asian guy with gargantuan headphones. He wasn't listening to the video because he was listening to opera at such a volume that it could be heard by me, over the sound of the TV, from 20 feet away.

After the video was over they called about half the people in the room into a courtroom for jury selection. Happily, I wasn't one of them. There was one guy who was selected who I'm almost positive will not get on an actual jury. Not to judge on appearances, but he was wearing two hats (a baseball cap with a knit cap on top), a floor length, black, nylon trench coat, a bright blue t-shirt covered with cartoon cats, and a florescent green fanny-pack. He also had veeeeeeery long fingernails and kept talking to himself. (Until his friend the gigantic, punk, transvestite came and sat at his table. Then fanny-pack man talked to him/her.) I'm pretty sure Captain Kitty-T is the textbook example of someone you eliminate from your jury pool.

Maybe dressed like that on purpose. Maybe I should try that. Either way, I didn't need to go to such lengths. At 2:15pm, right after I bought some red vines and a 7up, they said everyone left in the waiting room could go home. So I hopped on my scooter and drove home to inadequately prepare for open mic night. Not a bad way to get out of work for half a day.

* I realize that "a person of every race and gender" insinuates that I think there might be 3 or 4 genders, but I do realize there are only 2. Though in defense of that sentence, I’m not sure either gender would fall all over themselves to include the huge punk transvestite as part of their team.