The Duty of the Jury [P/B#2]
The Duty of the Jury (Subtitled – The Rapture) [Personal Blog #2]
So I lied when I said that the next part would be coming tomorrow last time. Actually, it was moreso a miscalculation of my ability to not procrastinate, for which I’m sorry.
When we had last left off, I was just reporting to the courthouse, and was headed to the Jury Pool room. Before getting there, I had to venture through the rain and gain entery into the Courthouse, which entering most goverment builds in New York City means through a metal dectector. A metal dectector that had a metal detector line that stretched from Hell to Sodam, and was quite helpful by informing me that I carry way too much luggage with me at all times. Bookbag notwithstading but in my slack pockets I (seriously) had something like a brush, napkins from the last wear and like 17 pennies. All in my pocket, no idea how they got there, and a comedic wonder of why I hadn’t thought to consolidate them (the pennies) into less of a rattle/jangling.
Anyway, the Jury Duty Pool room was a large, expansive room full of peple of whom I hadn’t even imagined existed. All walks of life, from every end of Bronx County. Familiar faces but nobody that I knew. Whereas in comparison,many of the other potential jurors seemed to have received their notices at the same time as their long lost best-friend from high school, or someone from their World Civilization 2(Two) class at college. However, armored with my crossword puzzles, Suduku, Ken Ken, and various reading materials, I was ready. Ready for what, though?
We all checked in when a roll call was literally called, and then what I’m calling “The Rapture of the Lucky began.” Right away, potential jurors who had various timely issues were given the opportunity to check to see if their issue would allow them to postpone their juror panelling service. In the previous sentence “timely” is the most important word. If you had something else to do that day like shower, or watch tv…well no. If you did not read, write and or properly understand English (such as recent immigrant) well then you were able to postpone. (Make note of that though.) If you had childcare issues, including but not limited to being pregnant and scheduled/expecting to give birth within the next week, or you had a child to pick up after school that day and no prior arrangement had been made for such then you were able to postpone. If you had a sick child at home, and would actually go get a doctor’s note to prove it, well then you were free. Another timely issue was if you, yourself, were sick today, and the exempter could see it then you were free to go home and crawl into a corner or your bed. A sick spouse or Fluffy puking? Nope. Previous things that qualified for exemption/postponement of service such as being a Doctor, Police Officer, Judge, etc, no longer mattered. It’s more apparent of why these exemptions dont exist after you look at the Panel Selection Pool after the Rapturing.
Suddently, it seemed as if God only favored those who had children or didn’t comprehend the words that I am typing to you right now. Mathematically, I would have to say that about 32% of the people there stood up and were magicallyunaware of the English language and had some friend who was just there accompanying said person to interprete for them . On their own free time or day off from work. In a room that originally had 500 people there were just roughly 350, but really that had to have been somewhat less accurate estimate considering like 150 more uncounted heads technically existed inside the pregant women with childen waiting at bus stops alone. Anyone given their chance to fly free did. Some of the pregant women (oh, and the expecting fathers rolling them) rolled free. Thus that leaves us with roughly 200 people left.
Then the people with actual medical illnesses not including just timely being ill, but rather they had serious medical issues and the documentation to prove it. That kicked out about 40 more people to Freedom. In less than 1 (one) hour we had gone from roughly over 500 (five-hundred) people to being left with about 140 (one hundred-forty) people left! 140 (One-Forty) left!
Immediately after or quite biblical moment, we all watched a vintage video of the history of Juries. I half expected to see Zach or Screech from “Saved by the Bell” to pop up; that’s how early 90′s (nineties) the video was. The movie skimmed and sumerized Panel Selection, which is the process of picking the Jury by Lawyers and a Judge, and then the typical manner of which a trial is conducted in regards to phases (Direct Examination, Cross, Re-Direct etc…,) the people who will be in the courtroom i.e. Plantiff, Defense, Witnesses, and Court Reporters. Basically it offered brief descriptions of their roles in a way that a 1st (first) grader could understand.
However our instructional and imformative state movie was to be cut short by one of the women facilitating today’s pre-panel service when she addressed the room with a call for volunteers for 2 (two) 1(one) day court trials. Panelling and Jury Selection, Case Presented by 12:00 noon on Friday, Delibrations Friday and Monday. Notice that, in a deceptive way, it was really 3 (three) days in total. Moving on, she only needed about forty volunteers. To sweeten the deal, volunteers for those panels (“the first twenty in queue” after she finished) would be rewarded with being excused from having to actually return to the jury duty panel pool if they were not selected as in what happens during standard procedure. Seriously, 1 day (liar, liar….) Time Served. However, you had to risk that against being selected and having to serve on that 1 (potentially 3 day trial.) Near the front-front of the room, suddenly it was as if a riot had broke out. I’d never seen people line up to volunteer to do their Civic Duty like that. The riot progressed then moved to the mid section of the front of the room (again, it was a large room) since it was fairly obvious who the first ten in each line were. However Ms. Deceptive had not yet made it clear how the first 40 were being counted. Would it be 20 (twentyy) picked from one line for a trial, or 20 picked from both lines a trial? (Take a second to digest that, it took me a few minutes to actually understand that notion after I wrote it. Think about it in terms of where you would like your best friend to be in line if you were 19 and 19- each of you in a different line.) Ulitmately to say, after they had their 40 (forty) people they then proceeded to tell the remaining 100 (one hundred) of us to take lunch and then come back in an hour. Roughly 12:45-1:00 PM.
At that time, it was annouced that some lawyers were requesting a panel, and 20 names were called. By 1:45, 14 (fourteen) people had returned with both disappointed and relieved faces. They had not been picked for the panel, but the axe sat over there head. Again, the arguments are do you want to get picked and get it over with, or remain nervously in a sanitized room with an axe potentially over your head. This gathering, and subsequent returning happened a few more times, when about 3:30, it was announced we were being released from the waiting room early because of the tempture. Perhaps I should have mentioned earlier the room had no air conditioning or circulating fans, and most of the windows were bolted shut. Compound that with the raining weather that had greeted me in the morning had morphed into a humid, Indian Summer day. Good times, except the waiting in the humid room (which I myself) had entered soaking wet.
Thus…I got to leave the court house on a happy note (which is how I end this entry.) It was quite the beautiful day, having gone from an nervous, nerve wracking morning thus accompanied by the remnants of Hurricane Asshole/Angelina to 70 degree weather, with a light breeze and a miraculously cloud free early evening.
Tune in for the next part, that in which the axe is dropped on my bank account.
[As always, thanks for comments on FB and by email, if you have a chance to check out and comment the original site www.gitr.telldat.net that would also be helpful. Thanks again.
Chester Kent - Get in the Rye - Writer/Moderator
www.gitr.telldat.net]
