Live from jury central

So, here I am on jury duty.

So far, I've been sitting in the cavernous central jury assembly area waiting to be called.

I'm delighted to report that the court provides Internet access for jurors while they're waiting to be questioned for cases.

Cfrost was absolutely right to recommend coffee. In fact, as I was lining up to go through security to get in, an official made an announcement: "Those of you who are here for jury duty are allowed to hang onto your coffees." Generally, there's no eating or drinking allowed outside the designated lounge areas, but they make an exception for jurors and coffee. It's officially recognized that justice requires adequate caffeination.

Comments

[ianqui]

Sorry i can't give recommendations for lunch in Brooklyn, but you probably already have some good ideas!

[Brendan]

Shoot, I had jury duty in Queens this week, and no one offered ME internet. Hipsters must be improving their municipal lot.

Good book selection, though.

[John]

A cranky, undercaffeinated juror is not an impartial juror - or an attentive one. :-)

[billy pilgrim]

I did my jury duty several years ago, and no tonly could I not get dismissed, I got selected chairman.

Actually, it was a good thing; we wound up on a rape case, of a girl who was thirteen at the time of the crime. She was nearly seventee, so you can see how much of her life was being affected, let alone preventing her from making any serious progress on recovery.

[pecunium]

I had jury duty a year ago, and I enjoyed it, not so much for the duty (it was a week, and I wasn't empaneled), but for what it taught me

http://pecunium.livejournal.com/185940.html>Jury Duty

[superdude]

The coffee concession at the Superior Court in San Francisco is called Jailhouse Java. I wonder if it's a chain.

The court now has an automated system where jurors call in on the Friday the week before jury duty to find out if they've been assigned a court room. If you haven't, that's it, your jury duty is complete for the year. If you are selected, it's almost guaranteed that you won't just spend your whole day cooling your heels in the waiting room. The courts are still liberal in their use of recesses, however, so you might be called in at 9am only to immediately take a 3-hour recess.

The last time I was selected, we tried the case of a homeless man who threw urine on and pepper-sprayed a paramedic. For this, we had two days of jury selection and three days of trial. When I added up the expenses in my head, it's astonishing how much it cost to bring this case to trial. There's the salaries of the judge, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the bailiff, the court reporter, and all the rest of the courtroom staff of course. Then there's =~ 70 potential jurors who are out two days of work + 18 jurors who are out 5 days of work (12 jurors + 6 alternates). After all this we found him guilty of simple assault, not guilty of making threats (?) and were a hung jury on the charge of assault on a paramedic. (We couldn't agree on whether the homeless man knew he was assaulting a paramedic, and whether he was acting in self defense.)

This wasn't a bad case to be assigned to. The prior time I was selected, it was a murder trial that would have lasted 8 weeks. I definitely couldn't have afforded that much time off. Thank God I didn't get past jury selection.

[superdude]

PS, I forgot to mention all the witnesses. They brought in the homeless man's friend who owns a bookstore as a character witness, a correctional officer, a nurse who was present at the assault, the paramedic, an expert witness to prove that it was, in fact, pepper spray that the paramedic was assaulted with, and to testify with regard to its effects, a radio talk show host that the homeless guy phoned in to as another character witness... It was like they were trying OJ Simpson or something. And I think it was pretty clear that this was a slightly deranged homeless guy who overreacted to the perhaps too earnest efforts of a paramedic who was doing social outreach. So let judge convict him of simple assault and battery and save the taxpayers 100 grand, I'm tempted to say. But trial by jury is a cherished right.