It happened a couple weeks ago. The trifold mailer showed up in my mail box. I was to present myself at 7:45am at the downtown Ft. Lauderdale courthouse jury room. Bla bla bla followed parking instructions, how to dress and more yada yada yada. Ok, been there before.
It is my civic duty to go for jury duty, so I make note of the date and promptly forget about it. ...and forget to tell my boss about it.
Well, the date got closer and my current job got into a situation (the shit hit the fan). The day before I was to go for jury duty, I was in meeting after meeting, appointment after appointment, criss crossing both Broward and Palm Beach County and my dance card for the next day started to fill up. Around 5 o'clock hubby calls and says, "I hope you didn't forget you have jury duty tomorrow".
Aw, crap.
My boss took it well. "Look, we need you tomorrow. Go in there spouting Glen Beck or Hannity shit and get tossed off the jury. Go look at the Helen Thomas videos and parrot her if Beckish talking points don't work."
Nice, but not necessary. I replied, "I got it covered, I'll be free by noon. I'm sure of it".
This jury duty thing is a routine I repeat every couple of years and it is what it is. So, I went to bed early, got up early took both a novel and a puzzle book and went off to perform my civic duty for the good of my community.
It's a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky. Getting to I-95 is a straight shot for me and I only had to share the road with a couple thousand cars or so to get there. For once, the Davie Road Blvd.'s draw bridge was down when I wanted to cross it. I get to the courthouse uneventfully.
Ha! The first hitch! The entry to the parking garage was moved for jurors. The BSO (Broward Sheriff's officer) told me to turn around take 2 rights and the entrance is right there and "you can't miss it".
I hate those words, "You can't miss it".
So, I go out of the old entrance. Make the 2 rights and promptly miss it. Ok, so, I take the scenic route and go over the bridge (this one is down too) get to Las Olas and 4 right turns and a mile or so later make my second attempt at the parking garage. Success! Except I have 2 BSO's telling me what to do. One is telling me to leave and the other is telling me to go through the gates. I flash my jury summons and now both BSO's are nodding me through the gate.
Whew! Now to find the parking spot. I drive a smaller SUV, so compact spots are not for me. Up, up and up and whoa! Cool Beans, this Tahoe wants to leave already! I stop and let them out so I can park. 5 seconds later the car behind me starts blowing his horn. Whatever. He's just jealous.
From there on it's smooth sailing to the jury room. Ft. Lauderdale's jury room is very comfortable. The seats are cushy. There's a lounge and a cafeteria. Restrooms are across the hall and for some reason they seem to have hired a comedian to MC jury duty proceedings - or maybe I just appreciate sarcasm.
45 minutes later, I'm signed, sworn and oriented and settle in to wait to be called.
Second break of the day. There's too many jurors and we get to participate in the early release program! About 30 of us are let go, but alas, not me. Oh, well.
Third break, I'm called for the first jury. It's 9 am and I'm being herded along with about 2 dozen people to a court room. We're there and ready to go. The judge goes over her orientation. She reads us the charges, cocaine possession with the intent to sell. Then she covers what constitutes reasonable doubt and what the right to remain silent means. She then swears us into truthfully verbally answering the questionnaire in our laps. I've looked through and see where I'm going to be kicked to the curb based on my answers to numbers, 3, 9 and 11 and patiently wait my turn.
Sure enough, when it's my turn, I'm stopped at number 3 where I state what both my husband and I do for a living. My new job is a compliance consultant for a company that obviously focuses on lawful dispensing of powerful pain medications. Yeah, yeah, the eyebrows raised and the prosecutor and judge made a note on their notepads. Strike one.
Answers for questions 4,5,6,7, and 8 go as expected as well as the expected halt on 9. The one where you have to talk about any legal cases you were part of, testified in or of any cases where family members were part of or testified in including adoptions, divorces and traffic tickets.
Philosophically speaking, nobody cared about the traffic tickets or divorce, but they did care about a family member's kidnapping and rape that happened over 25 years ago (she luckily lived). (I didn't want to talk about it, but that oath to be truthful, you know.) I asked, "How far back to do want me to go. This happened a long time ago". The judge said she'd be the judge of what's relevant, so I told her; which spurred more questions surrounding the disposition the magical mystery tour of justice pursued in a kidnapping/rape case before rape shield laws. Will that experience prevent me from being objective on a drug possession case? No, but I don't think they believed me. The judge, defense attorney and prosecutor all made notes while I answered those questions. Strike two.
Back to the questionnaire. 10 goes quickly and then 11. Oh, yeah, I'm so going home soon. "Judge, I have a big family, can I just stop with the most recent?" (I think the damage was already done.) The judge said that would be fine. "I had a family member was arrested in Key West." What for? Your honor he's young and was behaving badly in Key West at night in a bar. The matter was eventually dropped. The judge caught on, "Are the rest of the court cases like this?" "Pretty much".
It's a good thing that I had time to think about what to say. What I didn't say, but could have was:
- Well, you see this kid in my family, went to a bar in Key West and got drunk. Let's just say he wasn't contributing to world peace, so the bar called the police to have him removed. The police officer told him to leave the bar and go sleep it off. He said "Yes, ma'am", then bent over and up chucked on said officer's feet. Yep, that's felony touching a police officer and those charges stood until the judge in Key West elicited a sober apology from my family member to the police officer who turned out to be a "sir" rather than a "ma'am". (Colorful, yes, but unnecessarily detailed.)
or,
- A family member was arrested in Key West for felony touching of a police officer, that was reduced to a drunk and disorderly conduct misdemeanor and then dropped altogether when it got to court. (Succinct, to the point; but sounds worse than it was.)
It didn't matter. Anyway I looked at it, that was the home run.
Then, the prosecutor got up and talked and asked a few questions and yes, he spent a lot of time looking at me while he scorned medical marijuana laws. The prosecutor was looking for people willing to accept verbal testimony as the sole evidence. Then, the defense attorney got up looking for people who have a problem with a defendant who chooses the remain silent.
That over, we were asked to sit outside the court room.
As expected when being let back into the court room the bailiff suggested I sit in the back row. Ah, yeah, I know what that means.
Yep, I was cut loose at 11 am. They didn't want me back in the jury room either. So, I went back to work. The problem is, I could have sat on that jury and been impartial, but there were too many other people that were better choices. What I wonder is why I have to go through this process every 2-3 years when it's clear I'll never be allowed to serve?
UPDATE: From the comments and rereading what I've written, I need to clarify the fact that I'm willing to sit on a jury. I would welcome the experience. It's just that I don't get to, due to the answers to the screening questions.