Civic Duty

I'm afraid that when one thinks of Martha Stewart and the courts these days, one thinks of a certain insider trading incident. But I'm sure that Martha would still be very enthusiastic about fulfilling her civic duty were she summoned for jury duty (were she not, you know, ineligible on account of her criminal record). I know that I was certainly excited to serve my community when I was recently summoned for jury duty.

The timing was very convenient, as I needed to be available to serve this week. All I had to do for class this week was go to a half-hour long meeting with my faculty, who did a series of workshops this quarter on citizen participation in government. Obviously, she was very enthusiastic about my jury duty and willing to be flexible on the timing of my meeting. My boss was also very understanding, and just said to let him know if I wouldn't be in. (Did I ever tell you that my boss is a male secretary? It's very inspirational).

So, right at 6:00 last Friday I called the jury hotline and learned I would have to come in Monday morning at 8:00. I was very nervous. For example, what do you wear to jury duty? I ended up wearing a nice sweater and cords. Right before leaving, I started to worry that I should have worn a collared shirt, but there was no time to iron anything. Fortunately, I was not underdressed. Many people there, who were much older than I, were wearing jeans. One man was even wearing jean shorts and a hooded sweatshirt! This was very unfortunate, as the Washington State jury duty pamphlet I received after checking in at the courthouse was quite clear on shorts being unacceptable attire, along with swim suits and tank tops. I didn't see any of the court employees take this man aside to berate him, however.

After checking in, we watched an informative video about jury duty. The best moment was when it explained, "Defendant and plaintiff are two words you'll hear a lot around here." Our bailiff then escorted us into an empty courtroom and entertained us with stories about how different our city was when he was a child as we waited for the judge. There were 37 of us, so 24 would be dismissed during jury selection before the trial even began. However, when we finally were herded into the proper courtroom, we were informed the honorable judge that the defendant had just changed her plea to guilty and that we could go home.

He did tell us about the details of the case. Apparently the defendant was a young woman who tried to steal $1500 worth of merchandise from Fred Meyer. When she was apprehended by the security guards, she gave a false name. This turned out to actually be someone's name, however, and this woman read about the incident in the newspaper. Obviously a bit surprised, she called the authorities to inquire why the newspaper said she had been arrested and was in custody when clearly this was not the case. The judge informed us that fingerprints had come back and it was clear the defendant was not who she had claimed to be. It seems that the case was pretty clear anyway, so it may not have been very fun to sit on the jury.

They told us to call in each night because we might get called again. However, last night when I called in I was informed that my jury service was officially over. In the end, it seems that I didn't really help out my community at all, but at least I got a somewhat interesting story out of it.