Today, I served Jury Duty for the first time in my life. I kept getting called in college but was always away and told them that I was living in Boston so they should stop calling me. So they did, even while I was back in NY for two years in between college and grad school. But within six months of getting a new drivers license with my Brooklyn address and name change, I get called. I don't know about Manhattan, but Brooklyn's system seems to make sense - if you can't make it on the day you are called, you suggest a date when you can make it. Would have saved me a lot of hassle with the registrar's office back in the day.
Anyway, jury duty? Not that bad. First there is the amusing short film about how great jury duty is. It starts off with a dramady of drowning people to see if they were guilty. Isn't it great that we don't have to do that? And the amusing quotes from people abou their experiences. And then after the movie, after we've been sittiing there for easily over an hour, the staff calls up all people who have kids they need to watch and need to be excused, as well as all non-citizens. Don't you think that should have been the first thing they would do? About half an hour after that, after going through the instructions of how to tear off the correct portion of the juror card 3 - 4 times, the staff asked for all people who don't speak English to go through the doors (to be excused I presume). At this announcement, a huge mass of people rushed the doors. Two questions: one, how did they understand what the lady was saying if they don't speak English? and two, what about all the other instructions uttered that morning - were they supposed to have understood those as well?
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I sat and read. I listened for my name during the one group of potential jurors that were called. I had an hour and a quarter for lunch, during which I was craving a hamburger so I wandered over to the Fulton Mall and decided that Applebees would probably have a decent lunch special involving a burger. I was half right. They had a lunch special for which I got a cheeseburger, fries and a soda. But they gave me Diet Pepsi (which I hate), not Diet Coke, took close to twenty minutes to take my order, and gave me a charred burger. I should have known it was a bad sign when they didn't ask how I wanted it cooked. After lunch, I headed back to the courthouse, read some more, and was released by 4pm. I haven't been home on a weekday that early in months!
Is it wrong of me to be kind of bummed that I won't get called for Jury Duty again for another 5-6 years?
Posted by dahl at March 16, 2006 6:24 PM
Loved serving jury duty... two hour lunches, day over by 4:30, no responsibility. I'm not so sure why people complain about it... It felt like a mini-city vacation.