Doing Your Civic Duty... Sucks.

I spent the majority of this week doing my civic duty as a randomly selected juror for the Municipal Court of Seattle. According to the paperwork I was sent in the mail, "serving as a juror is a right, a privilege and a responsibility of citizenship." In addition, I was informed that as a reward for being such a good citizen, I would be compensated... in the form of $10 a day for my generous services. Whoop-tee-doo. Lucky for me, my company is one of those rare employers who is still willing to pay me my normal paycheck for up to five days of jury duty.

Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out a reason why the summons would cause me "undue hardship" so I reported at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday. At first I was a little bit excited. I thought the whole experience might be somewhat interesting - trials always seem so intense on television. I got checked in, along with about 60 other people, and we were shown a video about what would happen once we were selected as jurors for the specific cases that may go to trial that week. Then, they informed us, began the "hurry up and wait" experience.

All 60 of us were told to wait in the large room full of chairs and tables until we were called. Due to a compatibility issue, my Mac iBook was not able to connect to the building's WiFi, so for a while I sat and read my book. Four public access PCs were available for use, but since there were so many other people waiting I was only able to jump on for a few minutes at a time to check my email. Other people worked on their laptops, read newspapers and magazines, and worked puzzles from the shelves of games available. Every few hours, a group of 16 names would be called, and those people would disappear down a hallway. I was not summoned.

At noon we were dismissed for our 1.5 hour lunch break. I grabbed a quick bite across the street at Columbia Center and then with nothing else to do (it was really too cold to walk down to Pioneer Square) I went back to play the waiting game. I read my book... I napped for a while... I checked my email... I read my book... I napped for a while... I called Stewart... I read my book... I checked my email. Finally, at about 2:30 p.m. my name was called. My group was taken down a locked elevator to another floor, where we were crowded into a small room and told to wait. Finally, one hour later, the bailiff lead us into the courtroom.

At this point, the judge informed us that the case was one in which a man had been accused of driving without a license. Six jurors would need to be selected for the case, but it was too late in the day to begin the process, so the judge dismissed us until the next morning. I had effectively wasted 8 hours of my life.

The next morning we returned and waited for about an hour before the bailiff brought us back down to the courtroom. At this point I was starting to get somewhat interested. The judge told us more about the case, and then for about an hour the judge, the prosecutor and the defendant asked us all kinds of questions before selecting six jurors for the case. I was not chosen. I had hoped that at this point I would be dismissed and allowed to return to work. Nope. Back to the pit. Apparently you have to be chosen to serve on a trial before you are dismissed. Great.

The remainder of my day was pretty much the same as the previous. I read my book... I napped for a while... I checked my email... I read my book... I had lunch... I napped for a while... I called my office... I read my book... I checked my email. At about 4 p.m. it was announced that we could go home for the day, and were expected to return the next morning. At this point I was going absolutely insane. I explained that I had an important client meeting the next day and it would really create an "undue hardship" to miss it, and so, thank the Lord, I was excused from a third day of service. I feel incredibly sorry for those who were not so lucky.

To me, it really seems like an inefficient system to force so many people away from their jobs to do virtually nothing for days on end. But that's just my opinion. For me, jury duty was a huge disappointment and waste of time, but I can imagine that the whole experience would have been much more entertaining if I had been assigned to a case trial. Ah well, I suppose it was nice to have a couple days of just sitting around doing nothing. But if I were you, I wouldn't jump for joy when you see the bold words "JURY SUMMONS" appear in your mailbox...