Not long ago I received the Jury Summons in the mail. Last year I postponed three times and then a year went by so I figured I should go this time. It's never convenient and more importantly, I am seldom someones peer. That is to say I do not suffer fools who bring frivolous lawsuits to court and waste time and money for people like me. Without getting all full of myself, I am also articulate, fairly intelligent, and I speak well. All traits that if exhibited during voir dire will INCREASE your chances of being selected for jury service.
Now before you think me some pompous, superior ass, I support our legal system and the merits of jury trials. As seen on shows like Law & Order. Versus, I don't know...Hee Haw?? I have had the
The case was ridiculous and cost me three days of my life I will never get back. It was minority vs big company (DR Horton Construction). The wife apparently wore the pants in the family and had very limited education/vocabulary, couple that with the feeling of being slighted and Diary Of A Mad Black Woman was unfolding before my eyes. Her much older husband sat there looking tortured throughout the entire proceedings. Essence of the case? Her house was not built by DR Horton! DR Horton is a huge company and they use several smaller sub contractors to build various neighborhoods. When this lady went by the construction site there was a sign in front of her house with the contractor's name on it..."But she wants her DR Horton home now". I could not stay awake after the first hour. I wanted the cafeteria cook to poison my lunch. I wanted to fake Tourettes. The minutia discussed was like morphine for my brain. I understood the entire case (and my verdict) by the first break. The rest of the day and the next was restating and rehashing.
When the case went to deliberation, I wasn't even the foreman but I told every one in the room the logical conclusion we need to reach (and fast) and get the hell out of there. We still spent half a day rehashing again. One of the jurors thought this was a landmark case or something and wanted to be sure we were doing the right thing. Even requested some of the evidence be brought in and testimony re-read. Seriously?? This lady was in her new home, there was nothing wrong with it, construction was to code, no complaint about any of that...the only friggin' thing was the sign in the front yard did not say DR Horton Home. Oh I wanted a cyanide pill to bite on...or a an automatic weapon. To this day I cannot even tell you the final verdict.
Sooo...this time I am again in the jury pool room. This room is large and crammed full of every "walk of life". I swear I saw two or three homeless in there (how do they get notified??) Everyone hacking and coughing and sucking snot...what a petri dish of humanity you have to endure to do your civic duty. Something exactly like this (but with every other seat occupied):
My juror number was like 1605. They start calling from 1. I felt confident. I then learned how many people opted out of attending when they started calling 400 numbers at a time to get 40 people and by the fifth jury selection I was in that called group. And they had only called about 180 people total. Not good for me. Attrition was not going to work today. Insult to injury, I was in the last jury selection for the day and everyone else got to go home.
We go upstairs and sit on the hard-ass benches outside the courtroom while the attorneys are making motions. The bailiff came out trying to be a comedian but no one was having it. After an hour of this...he told us to break for lunch and be back at 1PM. Oh joy.
This will get even more boring if I go on much longer but here is the Cliff notes:
I read the docket outside the courtroom for the case we were up for (I was the only one of the potential jurors to do this). I found out this was an eminent domain case. When I mentioned this to a couple other people I could see they thought I was speaking a foreign language. I formulated my strategy to get through voir dire and assure myself of NOT getting selected. Unfortunately this voir dire was never ending because there were 40 potential jurors for 6 spots. The attorneys had to keep explaining what the case was about. After it was over we had to go back out in the hallway and wait another hour before they called in the 6 people they wanted. Now its 6:15 and night dark, raining, downtown Dallas and everyone is on the road. I'm going home.
UPDATE FROM SCHEDULED POST!!!
I just received a jury questionnaire for the friggin' US District Court! Are you kidding me??
This time I am wearing this:
Shouldn't qualify as contempt of court, should it??
