Jury Duty

Well, today I had jury duty. For those of you who have never had jury duty, the county sends you a piece of paper saying that you have to come on a certain date, etc. to which you reply that you can't make it. They then find another day in the middle of summer when you're on vacation and you have to move your whole life around to show up at 8:15 in the morning.

When I walked in, the security guard looked at me and said, "Put your keys and cell phone on the X-ray machine!" I started looking for a bucket to put them in so they wouldn't fall into some unseen part of this multimillion dollar machine. I reached into my pocket and grabbed my keys, cell phone, and change to place in the bucket, tray, or whatever it is that was supposed to keep everything from falling into this machine that probably cost every local taxpayer over five hundred and seventy two dollars. "Um, where is the bucket?" I timidly inquired. "There's no bucket!" He barked. I accidentally dropped some coins on the conveyor belt. They started too move toward the machine, presumably about to break some of the expensive components inside. "Sir! DO NOT PUT YOUR MONEY THROUGH THE MACHINE!" the officer snapped. "I know," I said. "I was looking for the bucket and..." "SIR! I TOLD YOU THERE WAS NO BUCKET!"

I slowly felt myself moving up America's most wanted list. If I dropped any more coins, more than likely it would result in a felony. At the very least, I would be in contempt of court and spend the night in jail with all of the local rapist, murderers, and other people who dropped change onto the metal detector conveyor belt.

Finally, I was able to retrieve my change and put my keys and phone through the machine. Miraculously, they were not bombs and I merely returned to being an annoyance instead of a threat to national security. "Where do I go?" I asked, but he was done paying attention to me. The sixty year old Jewish woman behind me hadn't taken her keys and phone out of her purse and put them all on the conveyor belt separately. One more deviation from the rules, and Michael Vick's empty cell would soon be filled.

After making it through the hallways, I found the jury room. For those of you who haven't ever served on jury duty, I encourage you to watch the movie "Red Dawn" from the 1980s, particularly the scene where they are making people sit in an indoctrination camp watching government propaganda together, but unlike the movie Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen don't crash through the camp with machine guns screaming, "WOLVERINES!" For those of you who are unfortunate enough to have seen Red Dawn, imagine you are in that camp WATCHING Red Dawn, and that's more or less what it's like.

Instead of propaganda films or Red Dawn, the court clerks play a government film from 1980 about what it's like to be a juror and how United States has the greatest judicial system in the world. They then switched on the coverage of the Michael Jackson funeral and I reflected on why everyone was mourning the loss of this 1980's icon, but noone mourned the loss of the guy that made this corporate video. Things were a little better in the world. Charlies Sheen may bust in the room with a machine gun yet.

After about ten minutes, one of the county workers walked up to the front of the room. She began calling out juror numbers. I'm 922, I thought. That's too high. I'm never going to be called. "922," the woman said, and off I went to the court room.

We were led into the court room and each given a golf pencil followed by a ten page questionnaire. On the paper were questions like "Is there any reason you can't serve the amount of time required by this case?; Have you ever had an injury to your back?; and Do you know any of the people who are going to testify in this case?." I looked at the clock. It was 9:30.

"We started filling the jury for this case yesterday so we're down to the last two jurors," the judge said. "The case is a civil case - an auto accident. All you are doing is deciding the amount of damages. The case is probably going to run through Friday." I looked around. There were forty other people. I thought my chances were pretty good.

I quickly scanned the questionnaire for possible ways to get out of this case. I have to be at a work meeting on Thursday, I thought. I think there should be limit placed on damages given to plaintiffs. The court reporter called the first person.

"Tell us a little about yourself" the judge said after she took the stand. "What do you mean?," she said. "You know - your educational background, your job, your family, your favorite TV show, and what the bumper sticker on your car says." I wondered if I had wandered into a game show for jury contestants. Where was Judge Judy? The woman gave her answers. She obviously was adversarial to the judge. He looked at her. "Ma'am, you can be excused. Please return your pencil and place the questionnaire on the table on your way out." Our tax dollars at work. Spending money on a seven page questionnaire noone will ever read, but harassing jurors over a golf pencil.

The next person took the stand. They had a back condition. The next one had lost a similar case. The next one was a police officer. Each time the plaintiff's lawyer asked that they be removed. The process was repeated over and over. "Tell me about yourself," the Judge would say. I began to feel sorry for him. He must b pretty lonely. Maybe this is his answer to eHarmony. He was just waiting to say, "You have a bumper sicker that says Carcasonne RULES? Me too!!" I looked over the jury pool, it was getting pretty small. We were at twenty and it was 11;30. After a ten minute recess, one of the other potential jurors sat in the box. "I can't be on the jury. I'm in a community theater and we have a matinee performance tomorrow." "Okay," the judge said. "I'll excuse you." Suddenly, I wasn't worried about my excuse anymore.

After an hour more of questioning, the two lawyers and judge found two more people they thought were acceptable. They sent us back down to the jury room where they dismissed us for lunch. After having a mystery hot dog and fruit punch from a street vendor, I went back to the jury room. This time I was ready for the metal detector.

The Michael Jackson memorial was in full swing. Jennifer Hudson was singing the theme to "Free Willy" surrounded by a group of backup dancers who held hands and skipped around her in a circle like she was part of a ritual sacrifice. At the end of her performance (which I thought was just mediocre), five or six of the jurors still in the room clapped. Who are they clapping for? I thought. I considered saying "Thank you. I'm glad you're all willing to admit Michael Jackson stole that song from me." I decided against it because a. there was no use getting into an argument with anyone who would clap for a television, b. I didn't want to claim ownership of that bad performance, and c. sarcasm was probably not the best choice for a response to their action.

Time seemed to drag on and on. Queen Latifah spoke, then John Mayer performed, followed by Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson, then Brooke Shields. Jermaine Jackson sang "Smile" by Charlie Chaplin. I was now starting to get sucked in. Who would they bring out next? Phyllis Diller? Emmanuel Lewis? The severed head of Walt Disney? One of the county clerks walked up to the front of the room. "The cases have all been filled for today. You can go home."

I was a bit disappointed that there was no free coffee, doughnuts, or bumper stickers. (Considering how much the judge was talking about them, I was expecting at least that.) I bought some on the way home, though,(doughnuts, not bumper stickers) and turned on the news. Michael Jackson was still dead and they weren't looking for anyone who almost broke a metal detector. Safe for another day.