Jury Duty

"California, The Greatest State In The Union"

(Opening sentence in the Juror orientation video) So as you may have already guessed, today I fulfilled my "Civic Duty" and what a rush that experience has been. You can ask many of my close friends and family and they will tell you I have dreamed of this day for a very long time. Some might call me crazy, in fact I think just about everyone who was summoned would back up that statement, but for me jury duty was exhilarating. At first I will admit that I was a bit peeved to find out I was report today seeing as it was 12:45am and I was calling from work expecting to hear the old "you do not have to report Thursday...please call again Thursday after 7pm to see if you report Friday" but to my dismay I heard a much different message. One that asked my to wake up in 5 short hours to be at the Norwalk courthouse by 8am. At first I was pretty much angry seeing as Thursday is a much cherrished day off and I had plans for lunch with Katie and Maddie. But eventually as I made it home, checked the email and finally slipped into bed around 2:15am, the reality of the situation began to sink in....I finally had my jury duty. So at 7am I arose to give a quick phone call to Amberlee-see we both were summoned and in the same group meaning we would both need to be in at 8am and since I had not recieved a phone call from her yet, I figured she may have forgotten to see if we needed to report. She had. Next I got the coffee brewing and decided I might as well shower, you never know who you will meet in court. Amberlee was there in no time and we were off. As we arrived we quickley headed off in the direction we thought the courthouse was in, forgetting it was right next to the parking structure we parked in. Finally at 8am we walked into an interesting looking office building where a confused security guard told us we were definatly in the wrong place. We took his directions and made it to the jury selection room by 8:15am. The next hour and a half was filled with orientation instructions and silly questions asked by other jurors like "I dont understand question 6b?"....."Well sir if you read question 6a it says 'if you answered NO to question 6a then skip 6b" "oh ok." and "right over there are the bathrooms and on the wall are the payphones" "Excuse me miss....Can we use those payphones" ( ahhh....I know she had so many different answers shooting into her head then the one she gave...and if you were on trial would you really want that guy deciding your fate? By 945am we were on a break until 1030am. (I would have been ok with no break and arriving at 9am). Amberlee and I headed out to the roof of the parking structure to get my book that I left in the car and try and catch some rays in the 85 degree heat. After break I picked out a 500 piece puzzle and made Amberlee help out. At 1100am the lady informed us that she would be calling names and these people had to drive to Bellflower for a trial there at 1pm. You wouldnt believe the intensity of that moment as jurors sat at the edge of their seats clinching their fists and praying they would not hear their name. After about 15 names, neither of us had been called. WHEW. Then 10 minutes later the lady says ok now for the next group off to Bellflower! Yikes!!!! another 15 names....not ours. WHEW. 10 minutes go by....ANOTHER group to Bellflower!!! 15 more names....not ours! then at last she says that is the last of the groups going there. WHEW. Its about this time that Amberlee pulls out her camera and tells me to give her the thumbs up because our row of people are all on their way to Bellflower and we are still in it! I felt as if I was on some elimination game show where I wanted to be the last one standing! Like I hadn't been voted off yet...still hanging on for another round. Well it wasn't 10min later that she called another list of names and this time I heard my own. Cursed by the picture! I was instructed to report to courtroom "P" for Party at 130pm. Then we were all dismissed to lunch...amberlee still not assigned. For lunch we had Italian across the street with Katie and Maddie. We even got free sodas for being Jurors! At 130pm Amberlee and I parted ways as I went to the party room and she back to the assembly room. Everyone was waiting outside the courtroom as there was a sign on the door instructing us to. We waited....and waited...and finally at 3:00pm a lady came out and said I have good news and bad news. The bad news is you will not be a part of this trial today....the good news is you will probably get to go home but first you must go back to the juror room. The case had resolved itself and our services would not be needed today. Ill this waiting and anxiety and my jury duty was over...I was sad. We were dismissed 15min later and since Amberlee was no longer in the room I gave her a call. Turns out she got assigned to a case but the couldn't do the selection today so she has to go back tomorrow!!!!

I will miss my Jury duty...better luck next time.