Jury Time!

Have you ever read John Grisham? Specifically in the 90's, when he was big and there was a general lull in amazing writing and it was easy to get drawn in, because what else was there in life, really, particularly when you lived in the middle of nowhere?
I think it was that leftover, somewhat fuzzy nostalgia that filled me with excitement when I got called up to the Big Show on Sunday.
The Big Show, in this case, meant advancing beyond the calling-in portion of my four-week District Court jury rotation and making it to tryouts.
I have this fondness for new experiences sometimes, and even though this was a huge pain in the ass in general (how often is getting called 100 miles away to a courtroom for an indefinite period of time when you have two jobs and children anything BUT a pain in the ass? That's a rhetorical question), I have this intense curiosity about the trial process. Add to that a current enrollment in a seminar class focusing on Freedom of Speech cases, and it was excitement, more than dread, that filled me when I arrived at the courthouse in Springfield.
After they wrestled my phone and Kindle away from me, I dejectedly wandered in the wrong direction until a marshal? uniform guy? pointed me in the right one.
I found myself in a roomful of people, doughnuts, and general air of mediocrity. They had coffee, though, and it was free, and that's all that mattered. I gulped it while we were instructed, first by a live person, then by a video featuring Sandra Day O'Connor and Samuel Alito, about the jury selection process and how seriously we should take it. Being a huge American history nerd, I got goosebump-y on the outside and patriotic-y on the inside, and generally melted into a big puddle of determination that I would do my country right, by God.
The next step was going up another flight of stairs and filing in the courtroom one by one as our names were called. I was Juror 14, the last one to get a big comfy chair in the jury box. The next 14 jurors had to sit on hard pews.
My inner jury selector failed during the next step, when, one at a time, we rose and answered the questions printed on the back of our numbered jury cards (name, where we lived, how long we had lived there, highest level of education, current employment, how long we had worked there, what our job duties were, marital status, spouse's occupation if there was one, number of children, and their ages). There was one woman who very clearly wasn't going to make the cut. She started in the next round, when the questions were general ones to which we held up our numbers if they applied.
The question was, "Have you served on a jury before?"
She held up her card. The judge asked her what kind of trial. She didn't remember. He asked what it was about. She didn't remember, only that it was "really bad." He asked how they, the jury, had decided. She answered that she didn't know.
"I wasn't on the jury."
The next question was if any of us had some general objection, maybe on the basis of religion or personal preference, that would keep us from serving on the jury effectively. She raised her card. He asked for details.
She raised her eyebrows. "I'll tell ya later."
Recess, in which we went back to the doughnuts and (now empty) coffee pot. We had 40 minutes to kill while the lawyers decided our fate. I hadn't said anything particularly enlightening or intelligent, and this jury would only have eight members, not 12, so I had a pretty solid feeling I would be going home soon.
The feeling became more solid when we filed back in and the jurors began to be called. Juror number two was also named Jennifer. There was no way they would have two Jennifers on the jury! Especially not a jury of eight! Then, three out of the first four jurors were women. They wouldn't want a jury full of women!
I was Juror Six. There would be two Jennifers on a jury, after all, perhaps for the first time in history.
Several of the people who had caught my eye in the general pool were on the jury, too, so I consoled myself about missing the signs that I would be chosen by telling myself that the other chosen ones had clearly caught my eye for a reason.
We were given a break for lunch, and the trial started at one. Fast, you say? Definitely. Boring? You bet.
I fell asleep in opening arguments, but woke violently due to the force my head fell forward, snapping me awake. After that, it was easier to stay awake.
The topic was more boring than anything I could have made up in my mind, and it didn't improve. The second witness sounded just like Zach Galifinakis when he did the southern-drawl characters in his repertoire, and that fascination kept my attention sharply-focused through the rest of the afternoon.
The snacks in the jury room were pretty good, and there was more coffee.
Day One was all right.
Day Two brought with it the threat of inclement weather and the promise of a really draggy trial, as the second witness testified for over two more hours.
Mercifully, we braked for lunch again, and I was filled with a bad feeling when the judge, a really likable guy, told us to take a break and "try to come back by one." That meant, in my mind, that we wouldn't be back in the jury room until at least 1:30.
I was a little off. We continued to wait, and I joked that probably they would settle if we just told them to. "Call Steve [court deputy] in here, and tell him we decided they should settle without ever discussing the case amongst ourselves!" I said.
Funny story. That's exactly what they were doing. Steve did come in, along with the judge and his clerky guy, about 15 minutes later, to tell us that very thing. We were not allowed to take our notes with us (a shame, as my predominant note had said "bullshit reasoning" with about six arrows pointing to it).
I took a granola bar for the road, bid my two-day family adieu, and left with my stamped certificate verifying that, for a short time, I had fulfilled my civic duty.
And I don't have to call in for my fourth and final week of rotation. Is it weird that part of me was sad about it?