Jury Duty

[stoutfellow]

So, I've been called for jury duty Monday. The way it works here, you're supposed to call or log on to the court website after 4:30 on the last weekday before - in this case, today - to see whether they really want you to come. I checked a couple of hours ago.

This is the third time in my life I've been called. The first time, I was attending college in Santa Barbara but still registered to vote in San Diego, and so it was the San Diego courts that called me. Obviously, I got out of that one. The second was in Chicago, during my graduate studies. That was one-day-or-one-trial, and turned out to be one day.

I've lived here for more than twenty years, but apparently I wasn't on the jury rolls until this year. I suppose it had something to do with not having a driver's license. (I got the form shortly after I renewed my state ID earlier this year.)

Here, it's nominally one or two days or one trial. I have no classes on Monday; I've made arrangements in case I'm still tied up on Tuesday. (The sit-around period ends at 4:30, so I'll be able to cover my evening geometry class either way. That makes me happy, because we're just getting into some of my favorite stuff in that one.) (Of course, if I'm chosen for a jury all bets are off.)

Sigh. It's a trouble, but it's also a duty, and three calls in thirty-plus years of adulthood really isn't much.

Comments

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

The one time I was actually empaneled was a first-degree murder case.

Had anyone asked "how much blood was there on the stairs?" a fair response would have been "all of it" as the victim was shot in the chest and head at the top of the stairs and fell back to lie head-down on them. Messy.