Civic Duty

Early this summer, I received a lovely piece of mail: a jury summons. At the time, I was busy taking a class and studying for the bar exam...in Gainesville. I was NOT going to drive to Miami just to sit around all day while there were more important things to do. So I sent the jury people a nice letter explaining my situation and aksed them to postpone my service until August.

When I finally heard back from them, I was no longer "on call" (you call in each night to see if you are needed the next day). Since I had postponed my duty, they put me in the very first group which meant I had to be there bright and early (8:00 A.M.) Monday morning. Miami being what it is, I had to leave at 7:00 just to be on time.

When I arrived, there were TV monitors showing a video on the history of the Dade County courthouse. The video, which was intersting, ended by talking about the turkey vultures that camp out on top of the downtown building and how they like to hit targets other than the sidewalk. Lovely image, huh.

Aroud 9:00, a way too cheerful lady began giving instructions about the day and explained that if you are unemployed, you get paid. $15! About 10:00, they called the first panel (40 people) and I was lucky enough to be on it. We went out in the hall with the bailiff who organized us and gave us numbers (I was lucky #7) and took our jury questionaires. After standing around for about half an hour, we were taken down to the hall outside the courtroom...and waited.

I was not happy about being on jury duty. I was hoping that I would get dismissed early because I am a law student. But the cheerful lady informed us first thing in the morning that we would be there all day even if we were not selected from a panel. They would "recycle" us. But by this point, I was starting to look forward to getting in the courtroom and was actually glad to be part of the process. Jury duty is a big part of our democratic system and I am glad to get to do my part.

So, finally, about noon, the bailiff comes outside and said the judge was going to let us go get lunch and to be back about 1:30. I got something to eat and got back up to the courtroom about 1:10. I had a book and did not even notice time passing. At about 1:40, another bailiff (not the one we were originally assigned to) came out and asked those of us waiting if were were part of Judge X's panel. He counted and there were only 13 of us back. New bailiff sent us back to the jury pool room and said we would get further instructions. Of course, the bailiff and the 13 of us were wondering where the rest of the panel was. When I got back to the jury pool, a bunch of the other people from the panel where already in the room. They said they had been sent back by the original bailiff.

I was back 20 minutes early. I never say the original bailiff. I don't understand how you send a group of people to lunch, tell them to come back at a certain time, come to the meeting place at least 20 minutes early, tell those already back to leave, and then not come back at the appointed time to send the rest of the people back. Doesn't seem very logical to me.

About 30 minutes after returning to the jury pool, my entire panel was called out of the room. We were told that, numerically, we were no longer needed and were free to go. The catch was, there were still judges that had juries to pick, so we would forfeit our $15. I thought about for a couple of minutes. $15 was not worth sitting around for another 2+ hours.

I left pleased with the opportunity to serve. It is a civic duty. But as with anything else in our government, I don't know if the actual administration of the process should make me laugh or cry. Bureaucracy can make anything painful. I'll let you know what I think if I end up serving again. I found out that jury duty is an "annual obligation." Oh boy! I can't wait for my next summons!