I really should have posted this on Monday, but I'm lazy, so... Gather round and listen to the (boring) story of Doma's Adventures in Jury Duty!
This story begins a month ago, when I get a letter in the mail. It says I have been selected to begin the jury nomination process and I have to go down to the courthouse on Jan. 31. My first thought at that was "Oh bother." My second thought was "Darn it, I'm going to have to wear pants."
So Monday rolls around, I get up three hours earlier than I'm used to now and go out into the bitter cold so I can get on the bus. The bus is the same one I took to get to work for three years, so I know the route and have no problems getting off at the right stop, and it's a five minute walk to the big courthouse. By big, I mean six floors of courtrooms and other legal bureaus - this is a government city after all.
I go to the designated room and wait around with about 100 other people, verify my identity, then wait half an hour for the instructions to begin. Basically we get told that this is a criminal trial that will take 2 to 3 weeks, and that we'll have a chance to be excused once the proceedings begin. They march us all in to courtroom #7, I'm all nervous... then they say that there's been some delays and march us all back into the waiting room through the jury escape route. We wait another 15 minutes, then get herded back in (moo). Finally, the judge arrives, and the proceedings being.
The accused is read the charges (possession of an unlicensed firearm, in case you care) and pleads not guilty. The judge then lists a series of criteria that the jury must have in order to be eligible. No knowledge of anyone directly associated with the case (we lose 3 people to this one), fluency in English (we lose 6), that losing two weeks won't cause undue financial hardship (we lose about 20), and then we begin selecting jurors through the time-honoured tradition of bingo.
They have a nice wooden box with a crank that they turn and then pick out 20 names at random. My name is not in that group. They then have both attorneys choose whether to approve or challenge the juror, without giving any reasons. Nine of the twelve are chosen from that first set of twenty. They draw out another ten names. My name is not in that group. Only one juror is selected. They then draw out another ten names. My name is in that group.
F***.
Fortunately, they approve the first two in that group and the fourth as an alternate, so I'm safe. Once that's done, a full two and a half hours after I first got there, I'm free to go. I have survived, but as penance for not actually doing my civic duty, I go and buy Final Fantasy XIII.
And that's the end of that story.
