Jury Duty

Wow, That’s A Coincidence

One of my favorite things I have going on the ol’ blog here is the “On This Date” widget over there in the right column. It is kind of fun to look back at what I wrote about back in the random years it, but it also shows that some of my best writing seems to have been done in the past…sigh.

On Monday while I was proofreading my latest Sports, Off-Road, Touring dream garage I noticed a post from 2008 with the headline Juror #6… and thought, “Wow, that’s a coincidence.” What did that have to do with lusting after unobtainable cars you ask? Nothing, but earlier that day I had spent an hour in the Klamath County Circuit Court Building doing juror orientation.

For County Circuit Court in Oregon you are selected as a juror and serve for a period of one month. You get assigned a number at random and then when there is a case requiring a jury they select a group from a block of the several hundred numbered people to show up.

I have a fairly high number, so if there aren’t that many court cases between now and February 4th I may not even get called. But if I do, it will be an interesting break from my current mostly empty retirement schedule. I just hope that they don’t find out about my stint on a jury in the Aiken City court back in 2015 and figure that seeing as I have experience they make me Jury Foreman.

Did You Have a Fight?

Friday I had to be at Aiken City Court, my number was up, I’d been summoned to be a juror. I had to report at 9:00 AM and while technically I didn’t have to go to work, what else was I going to do, watch the Today Show? So I went in to work. Because I didn’t know if I would be selected to actually serve on a jury or not, Donna drove in in the Sonata and I drove the Miata. We parked next to each other in the usual far corner of the parking lot.

Not long into the day, a co-worker comes up to Donna and asks, “Did you have a fight?” Her perplexed look back signaled further explanation was required. He said, “You came in separate cars.” She replied derisively, “No”, turned around and returned to work.

When she told me the story later, my first thought was, if we did have a fight, would we have still parked next to each other?

Juror #6…

…didn’t get picked.

I was glad I didn’t get selected, but would not have been disappointed had I been. This wasn’t for a regular trial session jury, but for Grand Jury duty. You would have to report one Thursday per month (more if needed) to decide if the prosecution’s case had merit for trial and if it did, hand down indictments. There are 18 Grand Jurors, 12 picked today for the year of 2008 and 6 returning members from 2007. So, although today’s lucky selectees were chosen to serve for one year, half of them would get held over and serve a second year.

First, all of us assembled in an unused court room and then at the appointed time we were guided into the actual court room. The judge came in and then the Clerk called the role. We were numbered alphabetically, so because my last name starts with a B I was a low number. As the clerk called our number, starting at #1 and going all the way up to #99, we had to stand and say aloud our name. They skipped quite a few numbers/names, leading me to believe some folks had called in with excuses already.

After everyone had sounded off, the clerk informed the judge he had 64 perspective jurors with one no-show. He asked the missing persons name and then told his bailiff to inform the Sheriff’s Office that he wanted a bench warrant issued for that person to be before him next Monday at 9:30. The judge then read a series of questions that if you could answer yes to you might be excused from duty. One person was excused because they had moved to Augusta (last weekend) and two more were excused for medical reasons. There were about a half dozen who had hardships that made it inconvenient to serve once a month and they got swapped into the regular jury pool for a two week session later in the year.

This left about 55 people eligible for the 15 spots (twelve plus three alternates) giving me a 27% chance of getting chosen. Our juror number and names were written on small slips of paper and loaded into a “high tech’ metal box the size of a cigar box and professional shaken up by the Assistant Clerk of Court. The slips of paper were then drawn out one at a time.

The first number called was for a woman seated right behind me. She muttered an expletive under her breath as she made her way up front. The woman sitting next to me went “Oh my,” in mock surprise. I whispered to her, “Yeah, she didn’t seem to happy about that.” About halfway through calling the 12 Grand Jurors, the clerk called out, “Juror number six — ty seven.” My heart skipped a beat there. I figured for sure that I was going to get picked as one of three alternates, but didn’t.

All of us unwanted jurors were directed back to the original room where we were given a written excuse for work and a check for $20.

Thanks Aiken County for buying my wife and I BBQ at Bobby’s for tonight’s dinner.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: One