thoughts from my first jury duty
I had my first jury summons arrive in the mail a couple of weeks ago. I got them once when I was in college but I was able to defer as I was a full-time student. So now, at my big age of 28, I didn't have any way to get out of it. Last Friday morning, I promptly made my way to the location on my summons. Here are some observations I made and thoughts I had throughout the day.
- There's over sixty potential jurors here. Hopefully they've picked jurors and sent the rest of us home by noon so I can stop somewhere for lunch on the way home.
- I heard that there's just a lot of sitting and waiting, so I brought the book I'm currently reading to keep me occupied. At least I'll be entertained while I'm here!
- It's 11AM and they're finally calling us all into the courtroom, thank god. I've been getting incredibly restless just sitting here and waiting. I've been drinking and refilling my bottle of water just to get up and go to the bathroom just to have something to do.
- I'm picked to be on the jury, seriously? What kind of luck is this, to happen on my first jury duty? It's noon and I'm hungry already. Wait... I brought this big-ass book and now I won't get to keep reading it while I'm here.
- I'm just listening to people talk and I'm restless and very hungry. This is taking so long.
- Every time someone involved with the case asks to have an aside without the jurors present, we're shuffled into another room. We keep talking about how hungry we are and what we want to eat once we're out of here.
- This case is silly.
- While listening to the trial, I can occasionally hear another juror's stomach growl.
- Wait - it feels kind of insane that as a juror, I get to contribute to the ruling. What if I was stupid? What if I was malicious? Literally anyone could be a juror and just be the most backwards, unserious person. I don't like that thought. I know the likelihood of this happening is incredibly low, but what if all of the jurors were malicious and not acting in good faith? I really don't like that thought.
- It's a few minutes after 4PM and we're finally free to go. Why did they not give us a lunch break? I haven't eaten since 7:30 this morning.
In case you're curious, I got a chicken cantina bowl from Taco Bell on the way home. What a long day. I thought I'd get to go home at noon and chill out and play video games for the rest of the day. No such luck.