My Day in Court (part 2)

I have never been summoned to jury duty before, not here or in Indiana. It was certainly a new experience. I walked into the waiting room looking randomly at faces that were clear signs of "I really don't want to be here." The people in charge gave us their prepared pep-talk and introduction to the video.

They then mentioned they had some interesting news. They said that there were more people who showed up today than any time in the past two years. I would have thought that was a good thing, but then they followed up by saying that the entire building was having a fire drill at 9am. We all laughed. They gave us instructions on how we would exit the building and where we would wait. They then paused, looked down for a second, then, with as much passion as I would imagine any government official could muster, said, "I exhort you to return." We all laughed again.

Interesting... we have all checked in and now were given an opportunity for release. There was a brief moment of the feeling of prisoners in a chain gang being briefly unshackled from each other in order to be transported through the mall without raising suspicion to the general public. It was tempting, I must say.

We watched the twenty-minute video of how important the jury system was to the American government and then waited for the fire alarm to go off. How fitting that we were in a government building in which a 9am fire drill didn't actually take place until 9.10am. We filed out the emergency exits and waited outside for the sign to come back in. Of course, when we were told to come back in, all 200+ of us potential jurors, plus the employees of the building, were required to go back through the front doors, back through the security. I think the "Grandma" winked at me.

We were all settled back into the waiting room finally, an hour later. At 10am, the same government officials started calling off ranges of juror numbers who were assigned to different courtrooms. My block of numbers were about 60 long, but there were only 30 of us. We headed up to the fourth floor escorted by the bailiff who gave us instructions once were outside the courtroom. No food, no drink, no caps on your head, no speaking unless spoken to -- it sounded a lot like being at funeral or a wedding when you were a kid. No electronic equipment should be on either.

We gathered into the guest area of the courtroom where the judge addressed us and gave us instructions about what would happen. They started calling off names from their list of who we were. Twenty-four potential jurors were selected to sit up in and by the juror box, later to be whittled down to fourteen. It was strangely intense -- wondering if you were the next one to be called. It's not like we were being picked for the lottery or anything life changing. Well, I guess it was life changing -- just not ours.

The idea of being placed in a position of such power over the future of someone else's life is so overwhelming to me. I guess that happens to be a lot like parenting. No wonder parenting is one of the hardest things to do well. I could try to write a book on how being a juror is like parenting, or vice versa, but I shouldn't -- mostly because of a lack of experience.

Yep, you got it -- I was not selected. I wasn't even a part of the original twenty-four. Six of us were left back in the guest section, me and five other women. What are the odds that I would be the only guy not selected? I guess I could actually compute the odds, but that question was meant to be rhetorical. Please do not attempt to compute the odds, nor ask me to.

For those interested, the case was a social services agency against a mother of a little boy requesting the judge for termination of parental rights. I didn't stick around long enough to hear the facts of the case, but the questions being asked of potential jurors were of the "do you have any history of alcohol or drug use in your family that would affect your decision-making in this case" variety. As a parent, Christ-follower, and child of divorced parents, it honestly would have been very difficult for me to be a juror on that case. I cannot say whether God had a direct hand in relieving me from that case, but I am thankful that I was not put in a position to decide the fate of this mother and her son.

Well, the rest is not all that interesting. I was led back down to the waiting room to see if any other courtrooms would need my services. At about 12.05pm, we were all told that all jurors had been selected for the cases of this week and that we could all go home.

And that concludes my most recent run-in with the law. Fortunately, I was on the "better" side of it -- this time. :)