She’s long had her finger on the pulse of “justice” when it came to having an opinion on the right and wrong of the world, but my daughter, my eldest, went numb when she saw it in the mail. It was a jury duty notice with her name on it. “You’re a lawyer, get me out of it,” was her immediate reaction. Justice, schmustice.
“Sorry, kiddo,” I responded. “It’s your turn.” She went ashen and silent. Rarely does she go silent. I relished the moment.
Her number was low. There was no doubt that she would be required to show, and little doubt that it would be the first day of her week of duty. She was doomed. There was no way out.
Since she doesn’t drive (anticipating no doubt that she will have either a chauffeur or father to take her wherever she needs to go for the rest of her natural life), I drove her to the courthouse. It gave us a chance to talk.
I do not want to do this.
Why? You always complain about how unfair the law is. This is you opportunity to do something about it.
I do not want to do this. I have more important things to do.
They’ll survive without you on Facebook.
I do not want to do this. It’s boring.
Did anybody promise you that every responsibility in life is fun? Do you think I was having fun before you were toilet trained?
I do not want to do this. It’s a waste of time.
Imagine if you were accused of a crime and your life depended on a jury. Would you want that jury to be made up of only people who wanted to be on jury duty. Think about it.
I do not want to do this. I’m hungry.
It’s the price we pay for trying to have a system that works. Without people like you, we don’t stand a chance. Here’s a bag of food I prepared for you. And I drink. And a book.
I do not want to do this. They all crazy.
Who’s crazy? You don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe everyone is. Maybe no one is. That’s why we need jurors to figure it out.
I do not want to do this.
We’re here. Go through those doors and you’ll see a sign for jury duty. Just go in there and they’ll let you know what to do. I know you don’t want to do this, but you have to do this.
I know. Thanks for the ride, Daddy.
You’re welcome. Have a nice day, and I love you.
Nobody who isn’t insane wants to go to jury duty. But we do it anyway because it’s our responsibility. Even if it’s boring and they’re crazy. Without real people willing to serve as jurors, there’s no chance of the system working. Just do it.
Update: And the verdict is in.
Jury Duty: Service or Punishment?
So, after reading my father’s lovely take on my jury duty experience, I feel it necessary to talk about what really went down today and what REALLY happens in the jury room.
First of, it is nothing like what you see in the movies. To put it lightly, jury duty is boring. In the beginning, they showed us a video with Diane Sawyer and the dude from Sixty Minutes, Ed Bradley (or whatever his name is) telling us how exciting jury duty is and how it’s such an honor to be chosen. Pish posh. It’s not only boring but, if you’re not called, a complete waste of time. It also did not help that a judge came out to tell us how we should learn something from this experience and see it as a civil duty. Blah, blah, blah was all I heard, Please, the only honorable thing that happened was when I was handed my slip and told was free to go after sitting for 4 ½ hours waiting for my name to be called.
So, that was my experience as a “non-juror”, and for those of you who are excited about jury duty, there is something seriously wrong with you.
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I look forward to her guest blog on her experiences…
Given the dearth of activity at the courthouse in August, my guess is that her experiences will be less than fascinating.
Darn. So all the criminals are in the Hamptons?
Was there ever any doubt?
“Nobody who isn’t insane wants to go to jury duty.”
I disagree (or perhaps I’m insane). I did two weeks of jury service about 10 years ago. I did it partly out of a sense of duty and partly out of a sense of curiosity. At no point did I even consider trying to get out of doing it. Things are slightly different in the UK, though – my employer paid my salary for the two weeks of jury service.
I sat on the jury for two trials (a shoplifting and an assault) and was the jury foreman for one of the trials. I found the whole experience interesting, the trials, the workings of the court and also the dynamics of the jury. I was impressed by my fellow jurors – all seemed to be genuinely trying to come to a just verdict. There were, admittedly, periods of sitting around waiting – but a good book covers these.
Scary, Martin. Very scary.
That’s your kid? Is she always an insufferable brat?
And now with the update in…
It also did not help that a judge came out to tell us how we should learn something from this experience and see it as a civil duty. Blah, blah, blah was all I heard,
Are we allowed to flame the kid? Huh? Huh? Is she fair game?
And more importantly, who taught her that ‘tude?
A. Nope. Don’t touch the kid.
B. Not a clue where she gets it from. Prolly her mother.
She’s not nearly as insufferable as her father. Or mean.
Not a clue where she gets it from. Prolly her mother.
We await the response of Dr. SJ in Update #2
Apparently you just have to find the right kind of jury for it to be interesting. One of my favorite cases in Evidence, Tanner v. United States, showed how you can have a good time even during jury duty.
I suspect that had she done more than wait in a room, she would feel differently about her experience. But mid-August is dead time, and as much as I hoped she would learn about her civic duty (in action, not from a judge telling her), there’s little sense of satisfaction in sitting in a room most of the day doing nothing.
How could she have been doing nothing? Doesn’t she care for your taste in books? I selected and brought one when I got called. And there were stacks of magazines and newspapers around, something I hadn’t known. OCA would be distressed at dissatisfied prospective jurors.
It might have something to do with the age difference.
Count me insane! I actually tried to volunteer for jury duty last summer. Of course my request was denied. 🙂
Consider yourself counted. And stay away from my court.
I always worry about just what your daughter complained about. And I don’t think she’s wrong to complain.
The worst part about it is that the juror’s ire at being shunted off in a room and having their time wasted is most likely to be vented on the disfavored litigant, whose attorney is the one who is visibly making a fuss and presumptively responsible for all the delay.
I once came to court to pick a jury and the judge spent the whole day with pre-trial motions that should have been decided way earlier. I represented the Plaintiff in a personal injury case. After being locked in a room all day with nothing to do, waiting and waiting, how receptive do you think they would be to the “complaining” party, who is not some important government official but just some lawyer holding no office, where the judge and other attorney are always, in ways great, small and subtle, communicating their own impatience and skepticism?
The management of the jurors, or rather mismanagement, is another way the system tilts in favor of the status quo.
The typical juror, although probably excepting your daughter, would be just as likely to hold a CDL responsible for a similar bad experience, instead of the judge or the prosecutor.
It’s just another thing you have to take into account when you’re trying to win a trial.
This is such a tough business for disfavored litigants.
I’m much more “sufferable” when I don’t spend four and a half hours sitting on my butt after being lectured by a judge about how he’s doing me a favor by providing me with an opportunity to serve my court system.
I am speaking for myself, but rather suspect that a high percentage people who are highly resistant to being juries feel the same way. I resent being treated like a mushroom (keep’em in the dark, water’em twice a day, and pile the b###sh## on them). I’ve been through voir dire 4 times. Each time I was convinced that NEITHER lawyer was seeking a “fair” trial, rather both were industriously engaged in trying to stack the jury in their favor and plant notions in jurors’ minds concerning issues later to be tried. And God forbid having a juror who might have some actual knowledge of an issue in contention. Lawyers want “favorables” on their jury panel, preferable favorable idiots.
Of course lawyers want favorable jurors. Why wouldn’t they? The problem is that the other lawyer also wants favorable jurors, so the net result is to end up with a jury that’s not more favorable to the other side.
By the way, are you hiding from the feds? If not, why the pseudonym?