Observations from Serving Jury Duty

I’ve always wanted to serve on a jury, but never had the opportunity to do so. Not only is it our civic duty, being on a jury has actual real-life consequences. My only hesitation is how being away from work would impact my own personal life.

A month ago I got a jury summons for January 3rd, and didn’t think anything of it. In the past I’ve usually been on standby and never needed to go in, but on Wednesday afternoon I was summoned to appear at the courthouse on Thursday at 9 am.

After waiting around for almost 2 hours in a big room of ~60 people, we were called into a courtroom to go through the jury selection process. The judge, DA, public defender, and defendant were all there, and the judge told us that the trial was slated to begin on Monday and would last 2-3 days.

That’s not too bad, I thought to myself, considering the last time I had to sit through jury selection it was for a 4 week murder trial. A part of me wanted to be called so I could be part of the process, but I was so bored waiting thru the whole thing that I was just thankful to be excused Friday at lunch.

For those who are fortunate enough to have not gone through jury selection, here’s how it works:

• 18 people are called up from the jury pool
• Every person goes through a set of questions, with the judge clarifying their answers where needed
• Both the DA and defense attorney are given the opportunity to ask follow-up questions
• Sidebar (private discussion) with the judge and lawyers, and the judge excuses certain members of the jury (presumably for prejudicial reasons)
• Lawyers are allowed ~10 peremptory challenges each, meaning they can excuse members of the jury for any reason
• More people are called up to fill the vacancies from the original 18 spots
• Repeat until a jury of 12 and some number of alternate jurors are confirmed

What I’ve left out here is the time we spend waiting while the judge and lawyers converse, the multiple times roll is taken, the random breaks we get, and the pure inefficiency of the court system. Overall it was mind-numbingly boring, and is yet another reminder of how wasteful the government is with our resources — both time and money. Even how we get summoned for jury duty is ridiculous — I had to logon to a website twice a day (between 11-12 pm, and after 5 pm) just to see if I needed to appear at court the next day…why can’t they just text me? The whole process makes me wonder how much money is wasted by the government in general, and doesn’t make me feel good about how my tax dollars are being used.

If there weren’t so many hoops to jump through I might actually look forward to getting a jury summons, but as it stands I’m grateful I won’t have to do this for at least another year.