civic duty calls
I am wondering how many of my friends have ever been called to jury duty three times. I served on a trial back in D.C., I was called up but stricken during a voir dire here in Adams County, and now I've been called up a second time in Adams County! I will be doing my jury duty approximately two weeks after Matt does his. You tell me jury
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I got called in 2001 for a civil case that was the dullest, least sexy thing imaginable, which, of course, meant I was totally impartial and subject to being impaneled. The case lasted six days, most of them with us getting out mid-afternoon, and was about two brothers fighting for control of a home heating oil business. We all quickly learned that the coffee in the coffee shop on the first floor of the courthouse was pretty damn good.
The trouble is that MA sets up counties oddly. Middlesex County, where I live, extends from Cambridge all the way to Lowell and a bit west of that. If you're summoned to jury duty in your county, you can be assigned to any courthouse in that county. (They will change your venue if you can prove you don't have the ability to get to a remote courthouse, as happened when my non-driving husband drew a suburban location a few years ago). So among my fellow jurors, we had people complaining of waking up at five to commute in from the outer suburbs, and I could only respond with "oh, I got up ten minutes ago, I live eight blocks from here."
On the second to last day of the trial, the defendant pulled out a huge document box full of stuff, causing the judge to call immediately for a recess. We spent the whole morning wondering what was going on before being sent home for the weekend. Upon our return, the judge instructed us to pay no attention to what had happened.
This led us to the only interesting part of the case: After it was over, the judge came into the jury room to take our questions. She explained that what had happened on Friday was the defendant had presented evidence that could potentially have thrown the case, but the plaintiff had not been given adequate notice to examine the material, and, since this is not Law and Order, you're not allowed to do that. She also said the case should never have made it to open court, but the parties had failed at all prior efforts at out of court settlements, so there was nothing else they could do for a case that, regardless of outcome, would ruin the family. The fact that some of the people involved admitted to Social Security fraud in court would go nowhere, she mentioned, because that kind of thing happens all the time.
My husband just got hit up again for jury service--on my birthday, even--so it's likely I'll get a card in the mail soon too. They seem to just blanket certain neighborhoods at certain times. I'll happily go again, because I take that kind of thing pretty seriously; it's one of the rights people have fought and died for, so I might as well do my part when called.
Your dog walking story has me trying to picture bringing my pets to a Rev warmup. It, uh, doesn't work when you own two bettas and a cat that bites people.
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