Tonight, after 5:30pm precisely, I am to call the County Court House to find out if I have jury duty tomorrow. This is the first time that I’ve received a jury duty summons since I moved to Georgia. How I dodged that bullet all these years, I’ll never know. Needless to say, I’m not too excited about it for a few reasons:
We have a vacation coming up that we’ve really been looking forward to. If I were to get stuck on a long trial, I might miss our South Carolina beach-sitting!
Even if I just get on a short trial and have to miss work on Friday, I miss out on Saturday overtime at work. The deal is that you have to work at least 2 hours on Friday in order to work overtime on Saturday. Why would this be a big deal to miss working on a Saturday – it’s time and a half – money to pay for the vacation we’ve been waiting to take!
The last time I did jury duty, I came close to missing a vacation because of the trial I was on – so it really could happen!
Okay, three items ending with exclamation points should give you sufficient information about why I’m not looking forward to the possibility of being selected.
It’s been about 15 years since the first and last time I had jury duty. It was back in Michigan and it was a very interesting, but sad case. The defendant ended up being convicted of involuntary manslaughter after he crossed a center line, hit a car with two passengers and killed one of them. The two passengers were a young couple who had been dating for quite some time. The man was killed and the woman came to court every day to watch the trial.
I learned an awful lot about the police department and the judicial system during this week-long trial. We saw diagrams, pictures of the cars, estimates of the speed of the cars based on impact fragments, etc… As I said it was interesting but sad.
What was even more interesting and sad was the jury. Interesting study of human interaction and group processes but sad in that the group brought all of their own issues into that jury room as we were deciding the fate of someone’s future. I was first on the list of “sad” issues as I told the judge I had a vacation coming up and didn’t think I could focus very well if I thought the trial might go so long as to interfere with that pre-paid time off. I got selected anyway, and later was somehow selected as the foreperson. I guess that was my first attempt at supervision so to speak – trying to make 12 people all happy – impossible!
Another sad story on the jury was the elderly gentleman who did not want the trial to end. He of course, was my nemesis, as I wanted to be done with the whole thing. I’m guessing he needed the $25 per day we received to show up. Just like I need the time and a half this Saturday!
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2 comments:
I had jury duty from December 19th thru the 29th. Each day I had to call in after 5 PM to see if my panel was to report the following morning. Well, it got closer and closer to Christmas and we had planned to go to New Jersey to spend Christmas with Ron & Gretchen and grandsons Marshall & Elliot. It occurred to me that Rose, the sweet neighbor who planned the farewell from Division Street party for us, worked at Circuit Court. I called Rose and told her my dilemma and asked if she could predict my chances of needing to report in. Rose said, "let me check and see". A little later Rose called and said "Go to New Jersey and have a good time." Do you know any nice people like Rose? It's who you know, not what you know, you know! I actually find jury duty interesting and hope to get selected to report sometime soon.
Hope it works out for you Carrie. I plan on picturing you and Doc. B jogging on the beach, basking in the sun, walking in the nature area, eating at some of the neat restaurants, and relaxing in your new condo that you now own :) Hugs, Mom
Hi Carrie! In DC and many other jurisdictions, there's a place or way to get a deferral, if you specify a future date that you will serve without whining. Do you have that option? If it's not shown on your notice or summons, call the clerk of the court and inquire; it's worth a shot. Of course, you can always be obnoxious in the voir dire as well, indicating that you have a thing against whatever group the defendant belongs to because of something terrible that another member of their group did to your mother or grandmother.
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