Jury Duty Daze 2016

Jury Duty Daze 2016

Yes folks, I have been called to perform my civic duty and have been called for jury duty.  Much like I did 3 years, I will post on my experience.

I’m going to break this post down into sections.

Jury Duty Day 1 Morning
Let’s start with a few random observations of my fellow jurors. Sat down in the waiting room. Guy a couple of seats over was fast asleep…and snoring. Gotta love that.
Woman next to me decided that the jury waiting room was the perfect place to file her nails. I guess it could have been worse.
The county employee who runs the orientation is very impressive. Recites everything by heart, seems to cover pretty much everything and is a very funny guy. I’m just wondering if that’s his real accent when he says “cawfee” or is he just making fun of the folks who say coffee that way. You know, folks from da Bronx or Staten Island.

FYI, I’ve been called for jury duty many times before and actually served on a case when we live in the city. That was a pretty shitty experience as we were told it would be a one week trial but it dragged on for 6 weeks. The defendant was some bitchy realtor from Douglas Elliman (who we found guilty of slander)  and I’ve hated them ever since. Also had an abusive judge here in Essex County, who let his position in life go to his head.

And so the morning of the first day of jury duty ends with no jurors names being called because none of the courts were ready for their cases to be tried. Just friggin’ awesome.

Jury Duty Day 1 Early Afternoon
As you can imagine, I’m incredibly bored. Been here for 4.5 hours and the most exciting part of the day was the dude who ran the orientation. Since then…nothing….nada….zilch
….zippo. What I really want to do is take a nap and I’m wondering why they don’t have rooms in this place for just that reason. If I need to be here tomorrow, I may bring a pillow.

At 1:46 PM, they call the first jury pool of the day. I wasn’t called. Yippee!
10 minutes, my luck ran out. Oh boo. Took about a 10 minute walk from the jury management area to the courtroom. Down the stairs, up the stairs, down to the basement in an elevator, down the long corridor, up the stairs, wait, wait, wait, and into the courtroom. Memo to the 6o something (maybe 70ish) year old woman wearing those chunky heeled shoes. Wear walking shoes next time!

Got to the introductions of the attorneys, who was suing who, and their witnesses. Yippee….I know one of the witnesses. Dismissed from that jury pool. And at at 3:14, I’m done for the day. Yippee…but need to report back tomorrow….oh boo.