I spent this morning at the municipal courthouse on Main and Harwood as part of a jury pool. Question: has anyone been called for jury duty as much as I have? This was my fourth such summons in, I want to say, six years. Maybe less. The first time, I served — prosecutor and defense attorney stipulate the defendant is crazy, we listen to brief testimony, hang out in the jury room for a minute, say she’s crazy, brushkadoo. The other three times, including today, I got bounced after doing nothing more than draining my phone’s battery. I’ve learned some lessons. Not always lessons I follow, but lessons nonetheless. Jump?
DO bring something to read. Usually, I bring a ton of stuff. A book, some magazines, co-workers’ private journals, and so on. Today, for whatever reason (read: I’m a moron), I skipped out of the house with nothing more than my phone and my rough-hewn good looks. Bad move. The periodical selection (People en español, Time, Readers’ Digest, etc.) makes your average dentist’s office look like a newsstand. Pretty sure I saw a Time cover about how the Republicans were swift-boating John Kerry.
DON’T forget your phone charger, if you neglected to pay attention to the above paragraph. I texted, e-mailed, played Words With Friends, checked Twitter, checked my bank account balance (it never changed, even on the eighth pass), and on and on. It’s fortunate I got released around 11. At that point, my battery level and will to live were perfectly synchronous: less than 20 percent.
DO keep your eyes open during the break they give you after you’re half-heartedly sworn in. This is where (generally) low-rent lawyers and lower-rent defendants collide. There will be mistakes made and from those mistakes you might see a defendant nearly come to blows with his attorney because it “says that s–t RIGHT F—ING THERE.” This will kill some time.
DON’T pay attention to whatever they have on the tiny TV. It sounds like a good idea at first, a solid way to sop up time. But then you’re stuck watching Regis Philbin ask Kevin Kline about roles he didn’t play and 3OH!3 do whatever it is they do. Which is — okay, you can deal with that. But then you start seeing commercials for upcoming programming, and you realize that there is a better than good chance you may have to watch The Mike Huckabee Show (today: Rita Rudner guest-hosts!) and you get panicky. Very panicky. Which maybe puts the cop baby-sitting everyone on edge, and his hand starts absentmindedly drifting toward his holster every few seconds, and the whole room gets the sense that it’s about to get very real in here. And the guy learning English in 30 days, according to the cover of his book, gets spooked, and, man, who knows what can happen? Maybe he’s got Arizona on his mind. He’ll bolt and everything will get sideways.
Do you think the jerk two seats down with his sunglasses tucked into the back of the collar of his Polo dress shirt is going to get your back? No way. That guy is soft. He will run. And the lady up front trying to make friends with her cracks about the checkerboard and, hey, hold on, can’t go into the courtroom right now, we’re in the middle of a game here, hahaha? She is going to flip out. She is going to get in the way. And the man in front of you, folding and refolding his Wall Street Journal like he’s working on an origami crane? He’s trouble, too. He will freeze. There is a side door. Wonder where that leads? Maybe nowhere. Maybe the big fella next to you can help out. He looks like he could handle himself if things fall apart. Yes, stick next to that guy.
DON’T read a 600-page James Ellroy novel in the days leading up to going to court. Nothing good can come from it.
