I, the jury...

Today I had jury duty. As it turned out, I didn’t get picked, which made me and the others in our group the envy of the folks who did get chosen. That’s one of the things I discovered today – if my informal survey (i.e., everyone I talked with) is even close to accurate, no one wants to serve on a jury.

Every single person I spoke with and those I overheard discussing it were annoyed or resigned to the inconvenience of being called for jury duty. While I understand the feeling, I also found it both fascinating and surprisingly moving to be a part of the judicial process, and I’m willing to bet there were at least a few others who felt the same way.

The court clerks who handled shepherding all of us (about 150 total) through the day, did it with calm, clarity, and patience. Considering the latecomers, the folks who don’t listen to what’s going on, and those who simply don’t understand, that was pretty remarkable. At midafternoon, the clerk who dismissed about thirty of us thanked us for our service and assured us that our time was not wasted.

The first time we heard about our service was when the judge came in to talk to us about what to expect from the day. He had to have made the same speech many, many times, yet it sounded sincere and not like a canned or memorized talk. He spoke briefly about the Constitution, and the right to have a trial with a jury of our peers, and that we might one day need that ourselves, so it was important that we give that opportunity to others.

It’s easy to laugh because we’ve heard a lot of this since we were kids at school, or we’ve seen it on television. What made this different was, in part, the setting. We were in a room that could be used as a large courtroom, though it was being used as a jury selection room. The other thing that brought a certain gravitas to the proceedings was that the people in charge took it seriously, and yet seemed to enjoy what they were doing.

There was one prospective juror I noticed early in the day, who met my eyes with a scowl on his face. I wasn’t sure if he was just mad about being there, or if I had somehow annoyed him from across the room. He, like me, was in the “non-empaneled” jurors (the ones who didn’t get picked). While we were listening to how we would get paid ($9.00 + mileage) he sat upright with his arms folded tight to his chest and the same scowl on his face. Of course, I’ll never know if he was really angry or just uncomfortable or unhappy about something completely unrelated to jury duty.

The City-County Building on Grant Street in Pittsburgh, where jury selection takes place - the statue of the man on the steps is the late mayor, Dick Caligiuri

Why do I write about this? Because for a brief time, my life stopped and took a detour. It could have been for one day, one week, or even one month. I found myself last night packing a bag with books and munchies to take with me, trying to anticipate anything I might need or want, without taking way too much.

I knew I had little to no control over what would happen. Even if I said I couldn’t do a trial that lasted more than a week because I run a business on my own (which was the longest time I figured I could manage without a problem), they could have said too bad, you’re serving.

As I look back on the day, my primary emotion/sensation was curiosity. I was genuinely interested in how the day was going to play out and was open to whatever happened. In the end, you could say it was uneventful, and that would be true. At the same time, it was a glimpse into another world, the road not taken (I went to law school but never practiced). And it was a day pulled out of my own world, yanked out of my comfortable space and thrust into a room with 150 strangers. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Take care,

Doc