Jury Duty

I know native Texans who have never been summoned for jury duty.

I’ve only lived here for 3 years, but apparently Dallas County Courts decided that I needed to perform my civic duty. Starting at 8:30am this morning.

I never leave my house before 9:00am, so this civic-duty thing felt very harsh when the alarm clock went off. It was still kinda dark outside. Weird.

I arrived at the court house downtown and paid $8 to park. So the $6 they pay you to show up for jury duty doesn’t really mean very much.

I submitted my juror form at the bailiff’s office and was told to sit in a big room with about a million other people who had the same unfortunate luck that I did. The room had theater-like seating which was kind of nice. Except the seats didn’t recline, which would have been fan-tas-tic because my early-morning fatigue was rapidly starting to set in.

We all got sworn in and then sat through a short video about what an effing honor it is to serve as a juror, blah, blah, blah. Then we got excused for a short break. Just 10 minutes into being a juror, and already a break. Nice.

I went down to the cafeteria located in the basement of the courthouse. Cash only. I only had enough cash on me (after being hijacked by the parking attendant) for a cup of coffee. Fortunately, the cafeteria was only serving the usual Texas-style fare that was either fried or smothered with gravy. Or fried and smothered with gravy. Just the coffee, hold the coronary, thank you. $1.65. Styrofoam cup, no fancy sleeve like at Starbucks.

I went back into the big room where we viewed the video and tried to doze a little while I nursed my coffee. Started to get bored so I shot off a few sarcastic emails to friends back in the cubicle farm at work. I gotta admit, jury duty is, despite the early-morning hour, still better than work.
Finally, after about a million hours, they called my number and sent me upstairs to a court room with about 40 of my peers. PEERS? Most of the potential jurors looked more like criminals themselves.

Granted, I was kind of excited to get into the court room. I’d never been in a court room before. I was ready for a scene out of Law & Order. Not so much.

The lawyers were kinda tired looking. The case was a "slip-and-fall". Not sexy. There were no Armani suits or crystal decanters on mahogany tables. The judge looked annoyed. Plaintiff and defendant were there too. They kind of looked like the stereotypes that you would imagine would be involved in a slip-and-fall (which is probably why the judge looked annoyed).

The voir dire process took FOR-EVER. The lawyer for the plaintiff was trying to make sure that none of the potential jurors had ever slipped and fallen before. Good luck with that, most of these people dragged their knuckles on the ground when they walked. None of the lawyers ever asked me any questions. Apparently, they had removed me from the jury before they ever met me. Would have been nice if they had just kinda said “no thank you” from the get-go and let me go try and raise enough money to claim my car back from the lot. Meter’s running guys.
Anyway, it’s all done now. Civic obligation: satisfied.

Though, it was all kind of anti-climactic. Once you get me outta bed and at a courthouse at 8:30 in the morning, it would have been nice if I could have sat around and watched all the Perry Mason stuff. I mean, this is Texas, I wanted to see some crazy-wild-wild-west-style justice, and maybe a Sherriff Beauford T. Justice character. But nooooo. What a bust.