Jury Duty

Been an Arkansas resident for 15 months, and already won the lottery.

Sitting in this morning to see how it works. From the paperwork, looks like I'm on call the entire month of April 2022.

 

Get a copy of an interesting and thick book. Unless you are lucky enough not to be put on a panel and get released, you'll spend a lot of time sitting and waiting. "Shogun" got me through most of a seven day trial. Nowadays I guess it's a well charged phone and an external battery pack.

I was called three times in eleven years in Houston. We moved to Alabama and I did not get called for thirty years. I was in the jury pool for the first case to go to court after they re-opened post the initial Covid wave, but wasn't seated. I was home in a couple of hours, completely painless.

 

One of the great privileges of citizenship.

And once deliberations begin, free lunch!

 

In arkansas.com you are basically on call for 4 months. However in my county, they only have you obligated for 1. So my time is the month of April. We'll see if I get called for a trial in 3 months or so

 

And the bailiff who walks you out to lunch knows all the best restaurants around the courthouse.

 

Books can help get you out of jury duty! Three years ago, I was called for duty and took along a copy of Terry Pluto's oral history of the ABA. I'm getting examined by the judge, he sees the book which has Dr. J on the cover and notes he was Doc's class at UMass. He then noted my name, and said he'd been a loyal Herald sports section reader for years. Prosecution and defense had a race to the bench to see who get me tossed out first.

 

I was in the federal jury pool for nine months once. I had to report for jury selection three times. I was never seated.
It seems defense lawyers don't like men who actually show up wearing a suit and use big vocabulary words during the process.

 

I was really glad for that copy of Shogun. There were a number of contentious things around the case, so we were repeatedly sent back to the jury room to cool our heels while the lawyers and judge hashed out which witnesses and what evidence would be allowed. I was good with that as the jury box had oak benches similar to church pews, which got awfully hard after a few hours.

 

Funny this would pop up, six years ago today I served on a jury in a DUII case. Found him innocent in less than 20 minutes. It was a fun experience. I was foreperson, so I got to announce the verdict!

 

I spent three weeks on a civil trial that was fascinating, watching all of the arguments boil down to this question: Was a dentist negligent when he failed to X-Ray a patient who complained of tooth pain.

 

I would caution about the well-charged phone. Both times when I was called for jury duty, we were told explicitly to turn our phones off and that if we had them on, we could be cited for contempt. I echo the book idea though.