Jury Duty, More or Less

Today I went in for jury duty. You might recall I went in last December to find out that I'd had my duty postponed. Well, this was the postponement date.

I was sent to a different court house this time, one which I ended up getting lost trying to find, mainly because the ramp I needed to take off Highway 87 is closed due to the construction on that highway. Fortunately, they seem to build some time into the scheduling, since I arrived 15 minutes late but sat around for an hour or more anyway before my group was summoned to the courtroom.

One thing that impressed me about the court house was how new everything seemed, despite the 19th-century date stamped on the building's cornerstone. Obviously a lot of renovation had been done at some point. It wasn't architecturally notable, but hey, the bathrooms were modern and clean, which counts for a lot in my book.

Have you ever been in a courtroom? This one was wood-panelled all the way around. The chairs - both for the jury and for the visitors - were new and sturdy. The only old-looking equipment in the room were the tables provided for the court recorder and clerks, which seemed like old folding tables. The jury chairs weren't the most comfortable, but they were padded, and they swivelled and tilted, which is pretty decent.

I'm not going to talk about the details of the case, but I found the process of jury selection interesting and wanted to record it.

The judge was a friendly man; he reminded me not a little of Mister Rogers, actually, which is a good thing, since he put a lot of effort into making people feel at ease and making sure they understood what was expected of them. Just about the most non-confrontational person I can remember seeing. He spent about ten minutes talking about the importance of jury service, and some historical remarks about why it works the way it does. For instance, in the past apparently many classes of professionals were exempted from jury duty by law in California, but eventually professionals who actually brought cases before courts found that juries didn't really constitute anything resembling a jury of their peers, so the law was changed. California jurors are selected from lists including voter registration, motor vehicle licensees, and apparently some other lists.

He explained that this trial was expected to be a short one, and implied that if anyone wished to be excused due to undue hardship that they'd have to meet a standard of hardship which only a few days' absence from the rest of their life would cause. He then asked those of us who weren't going to ask for hardship exemptions to step outside while those folks who were going to could do so in relative privacy.

Once we filed back in, I estimated that considering they would be selecting 18 jurors, I had maybe a 50% chance of never being called at all.

So, of course, I was the third name called from the rolls.

The selection process involved choosing 18 people, and having us then, each in turn, read our answers to a sequence of questions on papers we were given when we took our seats. These questions included our names, occupations, how long we'd lived in Santa Clara County, some general information about our family, and our past history as jurors or other experiences in court. Almost every person was asked one or two clarifying questions by the judge, although there was little pattern to the questions, and some seemed to have no bearing on the case. I eventually concluded that if someone brought up a point which might, conceivably, be related to the case, then the judge felt obligated to ask more about it. So, for instance, I mentioned that I'd been a software developer since I left school, and he asked me what I studied in school, although he didn't ask most other people.

Following this process, the lawyers for the plaintiff and the defendant each asked the group some general questions, of the type "Would any of you have any problems with X, please raise your hands," followed by some questions for those who did. After these questions, the lawyers had the opportunity to dismiss some jurors for "cause", presumably because they had a bias or an experience which would clearly color their attitude towards the case.

Following this, the two sides were able to make "peremptory" removals of the jurors, which is removal without any stated reason whatsoever. The judge had previously pointed out that the sides can actually peremptorily remove the judge from the case - apparently something few states allow - but of course this would have been done before the trial so as to speed things up.

This part is a little eerie: People in the jury box - the first 12 people called - are simply dismissed and asked to report to the Jury Commissioner's office for further instructions, and their place is taken by the next in line of the remaining six. It's done quite politely, and the judge had made numerous points along the way that various things are done in court because it's just the procedure, and no offense should be taken by any of the jurors because of those procedures. He was, I felt, really quite good at enunciating these points.

Anyway, I was the fifth person peremptorily removed from the jury, which I must say surprised the heck out of me, although I do have a couple of theories as to why I was, but they'd get too close to the content of the case, which I don't wish to discuss here (not that I really know much, but better safe than sorry). I went to the Jury Commissioner's office, where they told me that my three-and-three-quarters hours in the court house was sufficient to meet my jury duties for one year. (Okay, they didn't quite phrase it that way, but you get the idea!)

So off I drove in my car, windows down and sunroof open in the warm, sunny day, astonishingly pleased to have been a part of it all - but also to have it behind me.

Everyone at work was rather surprised by the turn of events - a number of them have been called to jury duty before, but either have not been called to a jury, have been removed for cause, or have served on a jury. Being peremptorily removed was a new one on them.

Anyway, I have the rest of my week 'free', meaning to keep plugging away at my projects at work. Which is really what I'd rather be doing anyway.

By the way, I came home after jury duty before going back to the office, and checked on the kitties while I was here. I always wonder what they do while I'm away during the day. The answer - not surprisingly - seems to be "sleep". Newton was standing at the top of the stairs on the side of the study, so I bet he was snoozing on the futon in there. Jefferson was snoozing under the bed. I opened some windows for them, and headed out. They were a little too groggy to notice my departure, I think.