Jury Duty

They let you serve on a jury after your time served? Or they didn't ask you about any potential conflicts based off of that?

 

I will be interested to know if that comes up tomorrow. I was never convicted -- agreed to Georgia's First Offenders Act -- and so my criminal record has been expunged and right to vote was returned once my probation ended. My background check should only show me as being charged with a felony, and that's for law enforcement only.

Like anything else, unless somebody specifically asks me about that or pulls the rap sheet, I have the same rights as anyone who hasn't enjoyed the free accommodations at the White County Detention Center.

 

Just to be safe, take a baseball bat with you. It's a jungle out there.

 

At least at a jury trial I've covered in the past - The judge asked generally to the group if they knew anyone involved with the trial, and listed about 15 names, mostly from the prosecution's witness list. One person said they knew a police officer taking the stand (neighbor), and after the judge conferred with the prosecutor and defense attorney, that juror was excused.

 

And my panel has to report again tomorrow morning. I really hope I don't win the drawing again tomorrow.

 

I just got a notice to report; the first time I'll have to go since I moved to this state in 2014. (I had a notice from a previous county once).
I'm never chosen for a jury. I have what my kids call a resting pissed-off face. The attorneys can never be sure who or what I'm pissed off at though, and they don't want to find out it's them.

 

UPDATE!

Oh, today was easily worth whatever mere pittance we're getting paid to sit in that grand jury room for two days.

1. For the most part, the DA -- yes, the guy who charged me -- was very prepared and his witnesses backed up the arraignments with solid evidence, but he tried to push through one rotten felony burglary charge on a golf course landscaper who happened to ring a doorbell camera of a home where he had done previous work. The landscaper thought the man (who answered from his cellphone connection) had said it was OK to come inside, since the door was unlocked. From the security cam, he apparently looked around the house for anyone, got some ice for his water bottle and left without taking anything. Even the police officer couldn't explain why the landscaper was still weed-eating on the edge of the property when arrested. We got the DA to define felony burglary (with theft intended) compared to misdemeanor trespassing (entering a dwelling without permission), and we rejected that case like Dikembe Mutumbo.

2. While he was getting cases lined up late in the day, the DA was talking about the sheer number of cases his region handles in a year and I innocently asked how many of the arraignments wind up being plea-bargained. He said it was well over 90 percent and explained it with a drawing of a funnel, showing how the system works. There are a lot of arrests but few court cases because he knows the system works in his favor.

"I've probably had 10,000 indictments and think I've gone to trial perhaps 140 times since I've been here," he said.

Of course, that gave me the perfect opportunity to stick the dagger in and twist it.

"So making all those deals, doesn't that make you sort of a used-car salesman of lawyers?"

He looked at me like I had just run over his dog.

GAME. SET. MATCH.

3. And for icing on the cake, I was selected as one of the four grand jurors to do an inspection of the Detention Center tomorrow morning! I get to pester the sheriff about treatment of the inmates from the other side of the bullet-proof glass this time around, knowing full well what the conditions of the place are.

 

My jury duty was a breeze. Didn't get called, and they dismissed the holding pen at 11:30.

Sucked having to get up at 5:30 today to be downtown by roll call, but that's a fair trade all the way.

Slow day at the courthouse, I guess. And that was probably my last shot at working a trial, but oh well ...

 

That's the way to make progress!! Work the system for yourself (and those similarly situated) from the inside (not shouting from outside)!

 

Congrat, Maumann. It must feel great to be able to shine a light into the dark corners you know are there from sad experience.

 

In and out in five minutes. They apparently tried to call everyone and tell them we weren't needed. I didn't get that call, so they are paying me for the day and I was out before my parking meter expired.

 

Today was both fascinating and frightening, cool and creepy at the same time.

The new sheriff is actually a very good guy -- he took my disposition back in 2014 when he was a deputy captain -- and has made some major changes to the health and well-being of the inmates. The ancient payphones on the wall are gone.

They now have access to tablets that provide them with telecommunication services that allow them to stream "prison Zoom" with their families at any time during their time in the common room (rather than having their wives or girlfriends come to the detention center on Saturday morning and sit in a crowded room for a once-a-week, 15-minute phonecam call). Plus, the tablets are preloaded with hundreds of educational videos so inmates can even get course credits toward their GEDs, or learn job skills like drywall or automotive repair.

Now, it's still "24 hours in/24 hours out" but he has a severe shortage of jail staff, which means "Neal's 172-bed hotel" isn't nearly as close to capacity as it was six years ago. I was stunned to see no more than five uniformed officers handling the entire facility, including a captain and chief jailer.

He explained much of that is a combination of not being able to match other counties in pay, a lack of qualified applicants and a lack of affordable nearby housing. However, like the previous sheriff, he's still open for business when it comes to housing inmates from other counties -- and has amassed something around $30,000 in additional revenue from that.

It's definitely an odd feeling to stand up in the guard tower (where there's just one guard now monitoring all eight blocks with remote cameras) and peer down into my accommodations from behind the glass. The window is curved in such a way so there are no blind spots, but that it makes the dayroom and cells look even narrower and more confining than when you're in there. I also had no idea where the other blocks were located in relation to ours, or that some of the other blocks held 18 or fewer inmates, rather than our 36.

I tried not to say what I was thinking to myself out loud but sometimes I slipped, like describing the ditty bags that each inmate uses to keep their personal items in the wash, or that I was surprised that the trustees weren't working on lunch since it was already 11 a.m. (Chow is noon.) Both the captain and sheriff sort of stared my way a couple of times, but I then off-handedly mentioned I had been at the "open house" back when the facility was built in 2012, and I had several interviews with Sheriff Walden (which isn't lying).

What I didn't know back in 2016 was that there's a secondary control center, away from the blocks and closer to prisoner intake, where two guards are basically performing the same job as the tower, with cameras not only of the blocks, but the corridors and exteriors. They can shut down the entire detention center from there if security was breached somehow.

The sheriff's offices and detective rooms are bright and cherry, and then you open a door to the other side of the facility, step in and suddenly it's gray and dark and feels like despair. Even the guards mentioned that it's hard not to be depressed in there because of the lack of sunlight. One of the other jurors asked how long anybody was held there, and the sheriff mentioned that he had one recent inmate there THREE YEARS and EIGHT MONTHS before getting a trial date.

And then that smell immediately hit me as soon as we reached the passageway to the cellblocks. It's some combination of cleaning fluid, the bleach from the laundry and turkey bologna, but man, that's something I hoped to never experience again, and unfortunately, I could still smell it on my clothes even after we got back to the courthouse. (I'm tempted just to throw them out.) One good thing: I did not hear that distinctive steel door slam at any point during our tour. I probably would have PTSD'ed right then and there.

Lunch at Chik-fil-A today wasn't the Ritz, but it was a whole lot better than the bologna and cheese sandwiches being eaten in concrete common rooms five miles away.