The Joys of the Jury

Well, what a hectic day yesterday was!! I've been calling the court everyday after 5:00PM and everyday it was the same message: "There are no trials for tomorrow , Day, date" etc. Well, Tueday night, of course I forgot to call.

At bathroom break time around 5:00 AM my brain started reminding me that I had forgotten something important, but I couldn't remember what -- and then it dawned on me! Now upright in bed, I realized I had forgotten to call to find out if I had been summoned to duty! I bolted to the phone, jury group number in hand and listened as they read out a long litany of numbers. Yes, mine was there and I was due at the courthouse by 8:00 AM that very morning.

Why on this day? I asked myself - it was the day that I had my own Japanese class immediatley followed by two back to back classes to teach - and then of course also my 2 1/2 hour evening class that only meets once a week! I rapidly sent out emails arranged for tests, sent notes to student workers and department honchos. By 7:35 I was in my car with a cute little lunch packed by my supportive husband on the way (destined to be 3 minutes late) but content that someone would take care of each and everyone of my classes, their tests, their discussions, their homework, their needs.

There were 63 of us in the waiting room and three trials scheduled. (At 18 per panel - the odds were pretty certain that I would be impanelled and be there all day.) I checked with one of the Jury attendants. He kindly checked and noted that he did indeed have my name listed for a panel on a criminal trial. I called the people of import to tell them I would not make it in to work, to implement plans B, C and D and then sat down with the group to wait.

What a very depressive group of people. There were two very young men who were mortified that anyone would know they might have to serve on a jury. They were busy making up ridiculous stories so they woule not have to serve. If they had looked around and talked to their neighbors, perhaps they would not wasted their time with fanciful stories about a supposed mother with a bad case of ebola or a kidney transplant that they would be involved in that afternoon. I met one woman whose brother married a woman with three teen sons, who shortly thereafter got involved in a murder. One destroyed the evidence by washing the knife that another had used to protect himself during an attack. He had $65,000 in legal fees already. Another man's infant child had just died in the hospital and the funeral was to be that evening. Yet another person told me about having to leave her 85 year old father at home attached to a mechanical breathing device. He would be okay, but you could see the strain in her face. Her mother had recently died of a cancer that had attacked the outside of her colon. At this point I decided to stop talking to people, so I sat down and graded some papers.

A short time later, a judge came into the room and anounced that the trial would not take place and we were dismissed. I had exactly 45 minutes to get to school and sit in on my Japanese class. I got to go to all my classes and collapsed exhausted into bed at 9:30 when I finally got home from school. It had been a long, hard day - but it had all turned out all right. My head was filled with one single thought. Thank goodness, only two more days on call for jury duty and "There are no trials for Thursday, April third." Just one more day on call!