Empty Bottles: Jury Duty - September 2006

Jury Duty

Doreen Philbin, September 2006 (I wrote this way back then... still experimenting with my blog setup, so I wanted to post something other than an introduction)

I had a jury duty experience a couple of weeks ago that can only be described as surreal.

When first called, ages ago, I asked to be excused based on being a full-time caregiver and homeschool mom. The woman on the phone informed me that this was not valid grounds for excusal if my child was older than five, and that I needed to select a time to serve when my daughter would be out of school. I’d just need to arrange for her care. I sighed and chose the week she’d be away at summer camp. I decided to try to adopt a good attitude and do my civic duty like a good do-bee.

I would have to drive downtown for it -- they can call you anywhere within 20 miles, and evidently this was 19.8 miles or so as the crow flies from my home. Oh joy.

So Jennifer went off to summer camp on a Sunday, and I called in and discovered they wouldn’t need me until Wednesday. Okay, so hopefully I’d go in one day, not get called into a room, and be excused…

The first day I didn’t have to report until 1:30. After sitting around for two hours, a group of us got called into a courtroom. Here the strangeness began. Thirty-five of us were called into Judge Wapner's court. Not sure how many of you are old enough to remember the ORIGINAL courtroom-for-TV show, "People's Court"? Well, this is the original Judge Wapner's son. This should have been my first clue that we were in for an unusual run.

This was a case of possession of rock cocaine with the intent to sell, as well as furnishing rock cocaine (I guess the defendant was a good marketer and was offering free samples). The first twelve jurors were seated and asked to review a questionnaire that included questions like whether you had relatives in law enforcement, whether you'd ever been treated unfairly by a police officer, whether anyone close to you had been affected by drugs, etc.

As we all settled in, the judge says, “Well, it’s late in the day, and I need to handle some other business, so please all come back tomorrow at 1:30. This should be a short case – a day for jury selection, a day to hear the case, and then however long it takes the jury to decide.”

So I drive all the way back on Thursday afternoon, and we proceeded get almost nothing accomplished because of the absolute idiots whom the judicial system deems my “peers.” I discovered from this process that the more teeth-grindingly annoying you can be, the more likely you'll be excused from service.

There was one jackass -- er, man -- seated on the panel of potential jurors that dragged us off on more rabbit trails than I can count – when asked whether he knew any of the potential witnesses, which included seven police officers, this bozo says, “Wow. Seven officers were involved in this arrest? Isn’t that a bit of overkill, Your Honor? I mean, these are our tax dollars, and this guy had seven officers involved? Isn’t that a waste of our money?” This led to a whole conversation about us not being able to judge the situation simply by hearing the names involved. It took about an hour. Then, the judge asked him whether he was in the vicinity of the arrest on the day of the arrest, and he quips, “Heck, Your Honor, I don’t even remember what I had for breakfast!” Heh, heh. What a funny guy.

A day later (yes, jury selection dragged on to Friday), this same dear man even had the audacity to say to the young, pretty brunette D.A., “And by the way, may I say that you’re looking very good today, Miss?” It got to the point where anytime this potential juror opened his mouth, everyone in the room visibly and audibly squirmed. You could hear a sigh of relief from everyone when he was finally excused. I refuse to believe anyone can be that annoying and disrespectful of everyone else’s time and of the overall process. He simply must have been putting this act on to get out of it, and by golly, it worked.

At one point, the defense attorney got up and asked, if the jury were asked for a verdict right now, before hearing the case, was there anyone who would vote guilty. Several people raised their hands. The defense attorney proceeded to lecture us that in America, a defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty. This took the better part of a half hour, with the judge chiming in to make sure everyone was educated on this most basic principle of the judicial system.

Then, apparently taking their cue from The Guy Who Wouldn’t Stop Saying Stupid Things, every remaining potential juror began acting completely annoyingly, taking lots of time to obtusely answer questions (when a “yes” or “no” would have been fine), wasting everyone’s time, and basically dragging out an already grueling jury selection process. One guy got excused by saying that he was in favor of legalizing all drugs, and that he had felt this way for years. A couple others had relatives in jail for drug offenses, and they felt that their relatives were treated unfairly by the cops (thereby earning an excusal from the prosecutor). Another was an amateur shooter – she participates in all kinds of shooting contests with police officers. She also, by the way, was called to jury duty although she lives in Texas and is only here for school (but uses a California address to establish residency), and was leaving for Spain or something in two days. She finally got excused. Several people spoke almost no English, and later, when I was in the box with a fresh group, I even had to lean over tell one of them quietly that the judge had just told him he was free to go, because he just sat there, uncomprehending, after being excused); another said, after sitting in the box for an eternity, that she couldn’t hear, even though she had a hearing aid, and had no idea what was being said so far. One guy got excused by saying that he was absolutely certain the defendant must be guilty of SOMETHING, or else he wouldn't be here. When excused, this delightful man threw up his hands and shouted, "HALLELUJAH!"

There was another woman in my group who had a nursing infant at home, but because she had returned to work, they would not excuse her -- if she could work, they said, she could be there at jury duty. However, there were no facilities set up for her to pump breast milk, and she spent most of one day in agony as she swelled up like a milk factory about to explode. Finally, after asking for a sidebar with the judge, who was willing to arrange a place for her to pump, one of the lawyers apparently thought she might not be able to concentrate on the details of the case with milk squirting from her shirt. Excused.

Are you frustrated and bored yet? I sure was. We were asked, after the third day of this circus, to come back on Monday. So I had to get my husband to stay home from work and trek downtown yet again. By this time, the entire original stable of 35 people had been excused, we were on Day Four of a process that should have taken a couple of hours, and I was finally in the box being questioned. I was asked about a traffic ticket I fought, and I said truthfully that the cop who ticketed me lied in court about the layout of the street on which he stopped me, so with my word against his, I lost. So the defense should have loved me. I said that I had a brother who had been briefly homeless due to drugs, so the prosecutor should have loved me. Maybe they canceled each other out, but glory be, I got excused. The defense attorney, who had hardly said boo on Friday (he had said he had a sore throat and couldn’t talk much), suddenly decided I was not a good prospect. Thank God!

Overall, I can say I was most unimpressed with “my peers” and thoroughly frustrated by the process. Bottom line: If you want out of jury duty, all you have to do is know a cop, or just simply know anything about ANYTHING, or, failing that, be “colorful.” The rest of the room may hate you, but you’ll probably get to go home early.

...Postscript -- I bumped into a fellow juror who actually stayed on the panel, and he said that, aside from Judge Wopner, Jr. himself falling asleep during the proceedings, they got a conviction. Whew. Not sure how much faith I still have in the system, but at least we got that far...

Introduction - Here we go...

I love Facebook. I pretty much live my life out loud on Facebook, and one of my favorite things about it is that it has given me a forum to write about me, about life, about stuff that cracks me up. I'm also probably a narcissist. I've been afraid to actually take a quiz (I'm sure there's one out there) to find out for sure, because it's not a flattering thing to be. As long as I can just joke about it without officially carrying the label, I can continue to find myself witty and winsome.

For years, people have told me I should:
A: become a stand-up comic
B: write a book
C: write a screenplay

While that all sounds fun, it's kind of overwhelming. And the stand-up comic thing is way different, in real life, than people think it is. Comics are basically story-tellers, but only a very few just stand up and riff successfully - Robin Williams, for instance, can improvise about anything. But to do stand-up takes loads of preparation and practice.  How you say it is probably more important that what you say. Plus, it would be pretty nerve-wracking to actually FACE my audience, expecting them to laugh at everything that I find funny. A lack of audible laughter would probably crush me. Writing just feels safer.

I was an English major at USC. While I graduated cum laude, I don't believe I ever turned in more than a first draft of a paper. If I'd only applied myself, I'd probably be Englishing harder than any of you right now, instead of being a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom whose job is almost done (Jennifer is, at the time I'm writing this, 17 and starting to take junior college classes). Wait, I guess that's what most English majors end up doing anyway, right? So until I'm forced to get a "real" job, I am feeling an almost irresistible urge to write.

One of my all-time favorite writers is Anne Lamott.  She writes the way I think. I just love her style and her take on life.  When I grow up, I want to be able to put my thoughts to paper like she does.

But I digress. I decided that the three things other people think I should do are way more than I want to take on at this point in my life. But blogging? Heck, anyone can write a blog, right? Do I want to make money by writing? That would be lovely, but I'd be happy just to have people read my stuff and chuckle.

So I'm going to try this blogging thing. Some things I post will be essays I wrote earlier, mostly for myself, but sometimes I published them on Facebook or a webpage I started once when I was caring for a sick niece and wanted a place to update lots of people who were following her progress (this was, I think, before sites like "CaringBridge" made that easier).

Some of my blogs will be family-related. Some will be God-related. Some may defy categorization. As I go, I'll try to give a hint in my titles of what I'm up to.  "God Stuff" is pretty self-explanatory, so maybe I'll use that for those ones.

I still haven't decided what to name my blog. It seems like a catchy title is required. That, and the courage to actually click that orange "Publish" button at the top of this page.  Well, here goes...