Last week, I was called to Jury Duty. I think I have been called about 3 other times, but I had good reasons to get out of it. Even though I still have young kids at home, they didn't make it as easy to get out of it as previously. It even said on it only if you can absolutely not get child care for one day then you need to appear. I knew I could get someone for one day, but I was still hoping that by the time my day came that they wouldn't need me. I call the number the night before and what??? Group number 3400 is to appear at 8:30 a.m. in downtown Phoenix. That was not in my plan, but I immediately started making arrangements for Trey for the next day.
I show up at 8:30 and ride the shuttle from the parking garage to the courthouse. By the way, the shuttle was like a Tour Bus. I could not believe how nice and plush it was. I go through security, which I thought was extremely odd that I didn't even have to show ID only my Jury summons. I could have handed it to anybody and had them show up for me.
I had prepared myself to sit and wait for the majority of the day, but surprisingly I was called back by 10:30 a.m. Not too long after arriving, going through the Jury instructions, etc.. A bailiff meets us, a group of 60, at a staging area where she gives us all a number. I was number 32. This is how we are identified throughout the day. After our name was called and we were given a number, our name was not mentioned again, only the juror number. We are then led to the outside of a courtroom and we wait (standing, they wouldn't let us sit because there were not enough chairs for everyone) for about 20 min. I think the worse part about Jury Duty is there is just a lot of waiting around, for unknown reasons.
We start to go through the Jury Selection process. The Judge identifies the attorneys, and defendant and asks if know any of them, etc. Then she tells us the trial will last about 3 weeks and is scheduled to end about June 27th. She tells us that if we don't want to answer in front of everyone then we can ask to answer in private, which surprisingly only one person did the entire day. Then asks if there is anyone who can't do this schedule. This is when the excuses started coming. You could immediately tell who was trying to get out of jury duty. I raised my number along with about 20 other jurors. I told the judge that I'm a stay-at-home mom to 3 and it would be difficult to find childcare for that long. We were also planning a vacation for June 18,19th of the trial days. She didn't further question me, so I figured I would get out. Most of the people that asked to be excused, were for work travel, self-employed etc.
One guy was a part-time courtesy clerk at Fry's and he didn't think he could get the time off. I kind of think they could find someone to fill in for him. I thought the best excuse was the guy sitting in front of me who said he had Brain Damage and he couldn't remember things long-term, so he should be excused. I wasn't convinced I believed him at this point. They continue to ask us more questions since I'm a pretty private person I thought for sure I would want to tell the judge stuff in private. As the day goes on, people are having to reveal pretty personal stuff about themselves, I felt we were all vulnerable, everyone has their issues/prejudices/ life experiences and after a few questions, I realized we were all strangers, and probably never see each other again nobody is perfect, the guards were coming down.
We then take a 90-minute lunch. I thought 90 minutes was a bit excessive, half the time would have been plenty, but maybe the attorneys/judge need the time to prepare.
We come back and the Judge tells us more about the case. This employee had 15 counts of essentially creating fake invoices and embezzling from her employer. UGHH! I would have loved to hear about this trial. I wrote a 10-page paper on white-collar crime/embezzling in college. Oh well, not my time.
As the process continues, I am shocked at some of the things revealed by potential jurors. A lot of people had cousins/ siblings etc in jail, and some had been charged with DUI or marijuana possession, but some things were very surprising to me. One woman sitting 2 seats down from me was beautiful, dressed very well, and looked so professional. She revealed that her husband had been convicted of 2 counts of armed robbery 20+ years ago. After she gave the time period, I thought for sure it was over and done, he had served his time and he is back to living a normal life. She later revealed that he was still incarcerated. What??? How did she look so together with a husband like that? Another woman said that a few years ago she was at a party with her family and her husband was shot and her niece was killed. The final shocker was the man sitting right in front of me(brain damage guy) who at age 16 was arrested for MURDER??? What??? You always hear this stuff on the news, but I was shocked that I am in a room with people who are living these lives. These are the people that you think "I'll never meet anyone like that" Finally at 4:30 they sent us out so the Judge and attorney could select the 15 Jurors. When we came back after about 20 min they read off the numbers of those who had been selected. Surprisingly there were quite a few that wanted to be picked and they were disappointed when they weren't. I was not surprised by who was picked. They all seemed to have it together and had very little baggage.
I have to say it is quite an interesting experience to go through Jury selection and see the Judicial system work. I am glad I went. After this experience, I feel there is no place for us to judge anyone else. I don't know anything about the defendant, or what the trial will be like. After being in that room and hearing people's stories, not even the trial I just realized we are all so human. I do hope I have the jury duty experience again.
