Jury Duty
Hurry up and wait was the order of the day. I couldn't sleep the night before jury duty. They wanted us at 7:45 a.m. at the Criminal Courts building. The parking lot is about five blocks away--up steep hills. I am always late for everything, but the last time that I was late for jury duty, I got completely lost--did not know what line to stand in and eventually I was told to come back the next day. That was really annoying, since I had already cleared that day--not the next day. So I wanted to be on time. Such a dillema--leave an hour early and get there before the court opens or leave 1/2 hour early and race. My plan was to leave 45 minutes early. Now I knew that this would not be an easy task. I usually wake up at 6:30, but I don't actually get up until 7:30. This time I would have to get up at 6:30. Usually if I have to get up early, I set the clock earlier, so as to build in this waking up process I have going, but noooo, I was so cool, I didn't think that I needed any stinking waking up time. So I turned the volume up louder (to remind myself that I actually have to get up at 6:30) and turned out the light. Three hours later when I still couldn't fall asleep from worrying if I'd get up on time, I considered setting the alarm clock earlier, but by now I had lost so much sleep time, I really didn't have any to spare.
When I finally went to sleep, I started dreaming about crime shows and jails. I just saw the 60 minutes segment on super max prisions. If I have to go to prison, I'm scared enough of all those other prisoners, that I think solitary confinment would work good for me, but they were talking about the guys in supermax as going insane. Not a good picture. There was an episode of Law and Order about a prison riot and they showed some of the people who had been on earlier episodes after they'd been in prison--that was a very scary episode.
When the alarm went off (weirdly at 6:45--I think I slept through turning it off the first few times), I realized that it was not being late that was worrying me--it was having to possibly send someone to jail. So I got up--did not go crazy that I was running late--a half hour is plenty. I was on the road and traffic was awful, but I knew that a judge was not going to be there at 7:45, so I put worry over being late out of my mind. I was not familar with the parking lot (I go downtown a lot, but a free parking lot beats my regular $17 parking lot by a mile), so I worried that I would have to circle the block, which is next to impossible in downtown Los Angeles. However, the parking lot was simple to find--the parking spot was really close and tight, but my car has already hit a poll, so what's a little more damage. Finding the way out of the parking lot was slightly confusing, but I managed and there were a bunch of clueless people just like me with their jury summons in their hand at the light. Luckily it was down hill to the courthouse, since by now I was over 15 minutes late, but I had a good crowd around me of other late people, so, no worries. One lady struck up a conversation and the rest of us were grateful. At one light, someone in our crowd started up the wrong street and we quickly set her straight. The back door to the courthouse that we were supposed to enter by was clearly marked and while their lines for security were not as organized as the airports--I figured it out.
Then came the elevators. There were six that were just for the 12 to 19 floors and then past that, in an area that sort of looked like it was blocked off, were the elevators for the 1 to 11th floors. The lady who started the conversation said that it was on the 11th floor, but my summons said the fifth floor. After a flurry of panic, I confidently stated that there must be more than one jury room and croaked for someone to press 5. I pealed out of the elevator on the 5th floor and realized that I had been there before. This was the floor that has the arraignment court that my class visited last year on our tour of the criminal courthouse. There was the snack bar, but I didn't remember the jury room being here. Not to worry, there it was at the end of the hallway. Great, I thought--I'm trying to be good on my diet and I'm going to be stuck all day long next to the snack bar--lovely.
The guard inside the jury room handed me a packet and said, take a seat. The room was packed, but I managed to find an empty seat between two people who had spread out, obviously not wanting someone to sit there. So now it was after 8 a.m. and I expected it to start any minute. After five minutes, I figured I might as well read my book. I used to never leave the house without a book. I always had room in my smallest purse to bring my book, but now reading a book has become quite a process. First I get out my book and find my page (that I have turned down the corner of, even though I hate defacing a book in any manner--I always forget to use one of the million bookmarks that I have). While holding my page (since I have smoothed out the corner, still feeling bad for having turned it down in the first place), I go to fish out my glasses, but I can't open the case with one hand, so loose my place in my book, get my glasses, put away the glass case, and finally settle down to read. What a terrible book. So I put my book away, put away my glasses and closed my eyes to try to go to sleep. That's when they decided to give us our instructions.
The instructions lasted a long time and then we had to turn in the paperwork (saying how long our employer would pay for jury duty--mine is zero). Then at 10 a.m., they told us we could go on a break for 20 minutes. That prompted most people to spread out into the hallways and tables, so that the chairs were not quite so crowded and for the rest of the day, I had the seat next to me empty. So I tried sleeping, I went back to my book (yuck), I tried sudoko (but I couldn't concentrate), later in the afternoon I even worked on my cross-stitch. At 11 they called one panel (not me). At Noon they told us we could leave for lunch and to be back at 1:30. As 100 people headed for the elevators, the panel they had called at 11 was coming in our direction done with that panel. It took about 20 minutes to get an elevator and I went back to my car for lunch (I brought my chicken and I even brought an apple--very disciplined--I was so proud of myself). It was up hill to my car.
In the afternoon, I did fall asleep sitting up and when I woke up I was strangely refreshed, but it was only 2:30. At 4 we all anxiously watched the clock and waited breathlessly for the release. They told us that it would come at some time between 4 and 5. At five minutes after 4, they came on the loudspeaker and said that we were going to be released, but that we had to wait for our name to be called and then come up and get our proof of service card. If we didn't answer here, then we'd have to come back and do it again in two weeks. The "heres" were very loud and clear. There was silence after the announcement and the guy said "you are allowed to be happy you are leaving" and then there was some applause, but quite frankly we were all too exhausted from our stressful day of waiting to get too excited. As I left the building to make the up hill hike back to my car it looked like rain, but it didn't rain. So that was my blessing, when I counted my blessings. That was the only one I had any energy for.
When I finally went to sleep, I started dreaming about crime shows and jails. I just saw the 60 minutes segment on super max prisions. If I have to go to prison, I'm scared enough of all those other prisoners, that I think solitary confinment would work good for me, but they were talking about the guys in supermax as going insane. Not a good picture. There was an episode of Law and Order about a prison riot and they showed some of the people who had been on earlier episodes after they'd been in prison--that was a very scary episode.
When the alarm went off (weirdly at 6:45--I think I slept through turning it off the first few times), I realized that it was not being late that was worrying me--it was having to possibly send someone to jail. So I got up--did not go crazy that I was running late--a half hour is plenty. I was on the road and traffic was awful, but I knew that a judge was not going to be there at 7:45, so I put worry over being late out of my mind. I was not familar with the parking lot (I go downtown a lot, but a free parking lot beats my regular $17 parking lot by a mile), so I worried that I would have to circle the block, which is next to impossible in downtown Los Angeles. However, the parking lot was simple to find--the parking spot was really close and tight, but my car has already hit a poll, so what's a little more damage. Finding the way out of the parking lot was slightly confusing, but I managed and there were a bunch of clueless people just like me with their jury summons in their hand at the light. Luckily it was down hill to the courthouse, since by now I was over 15 minutes late, but I had a good crowd around me of other late people, so, no worries. One lady struck up a conversation and the rest of us were grateful. At one light, someone in our crowd started up the wrong street and we quickly set her straight. The back door to the courthouse that we were supposed to enter by was clearly marked and while their lines for security were not as organized as the airports--I figured it out.
Then came the elevators. There were six that were just for the 12 to 19 floors and then past that, in an area that sort of looked like it was blocked off, were the elevators for the 1 to 11th floors. The lady who started the conversation said that it was on the 11th floor, but my summons said the fifth floor. After a flurry of panic, I confidently stated that there must be more than one jury room and croaked for someone to press 5. I pealed out of the elevator on the 5th floor and realized that I had been there before. This was the floor that has the arraignment court that my class visited last year on our tour of the criminal courthouse. There was the snack bar, but I didn't remember the jury room being here. Not to worry, there it was at the end of the hallway. Great, I thought--I'm trying to be good on my diet and I'm going to be stuck all day long next to the snack bar--lovely.
The guard inside the jury room handed me a packet and said, take a seat. The room was packed, but I managed to find an empty seat between two people who had spread out, obviously not wanting someone to sit there. So now it was after 8 a.m. and I expected it to start any minute. After five minutes, I figured I might as well read my book. I used to never leave the house without a book. I always had room in my smallest purse to bring my book, but now reading a book has become quite a process. First I get out my book and find my page (that I have turned down the corner of, even though I hate defacing a book in any manner--I always forget to use one of the million bookmarks that I have). While holding my page (since I have smoothed out the corner, still feeling bad for having turned it down in the first place), I go to fish out my glasses, but I can't open the case with one hand, so loose my place in my book, get my glasses, put away the glass case, and finally settle down to read. What a terrible book. So I put my book away, put away my glasses and closed my eyes to try to go to sleep. That's when they decided to give us our instructions.
The instructions lasted a long time and then we had to turn in the paperwork (saying how long our employer would pay for jury duty--mine is zero). Then at 10 a.m., they told us we could go on a break for 20 minutes. That prompted most people to spread out into the hallways and tables, so that the chairs were not quite so crowded and for the rest of the day, I had the seat next to me empty. So I tried sleeping, I went back to my book (yuck), I tried sudoko (but I couldn't concentrate), later in the afternoon I even worked on my cross-stitch. At 11 they called one panel (not me). At Noon they told us we could leave for lunch and to be back at 1:30. As 100 people headed for the elevators, the panel they had called at 11 was coming in our direction done with that panel. It took about 20 minutes to get an elevator and I went back to my car for lunch (I brought my chicken and I even brought an apple--very disciplined--I was so proud of myself). It was up hill to my car.
In the afternoon, I did fall asleep sitting up and when I woke up I was strangely refreshed, but it was only 2:30. At 4 we all anxiously watched the clock and waited breathlessly for the release. They told us that it would come at some time between 4 and 5. At five minutes after 4, they came on the loudspeaker and said that we were going to be released, but that we had to wait for our name to be called and then come up and get our proof of service card. If we didn't answer here, then we'd have to come back and do it again in two weeks. The "heres" were very loud and clear. There was silence after the announcement and the guy said "you are allowed to be happy you are leaving" and then there was some applause, but quite frankly we were all too exhausted from our stressful day of waiting to get too excited. As I left the building to make the up hill hike back to my car it looked like rain, but it didn't rain. So that was my blessing, when I counted my blessings. That was the only one I had any energy for.
posted by KathrynVH @ 10:37 AM
2 Comments:
At October 18, 2007 at 5:30 PM,
Anonymous said…
How unlike my jury duty experiences. There was always somebody interesting to talk to and time seemed to slide away. Once on a panel though, the talking stopped because the instructions are, "no talking about the case." Of course, we were alowed to talk but to avoid the appearance of talking about the case, there were few conversations.
I recall a black lady with whom I spent over four hours discussing her problems. She was unmarried, late sixties, and had stories about the young bucks in her neighborhood that were always nice to her. She maintained that they all called her Mamma and sweet talked her. When I asked why they did that, she said they all want an older lady to live with so that she would provide food and housing. She said she was too smart to fall for that kind of talk.
At October 21, 2007 at 10:42 AM,
Sean M. said…
Ahh, jury duty... That is something I have not yet experienced. Though I would not object to serving, I would hope that my experience would be more exciting than yours...
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