It’s finally over

After 3 days of wasted time, much stress, and the $9.30 the courthouse sucked out of me in food and internet fees, it’s finally over. This should net me with a profit of $21 and some change. I called in on tues night, and heard the magic words, group 4 has been dismissed. Just as I was about to celebrate, I remembered. I shouldn’t be celebrating, because I shouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place. I have nothing to celebrate. I have a lot of grievances with the jury system, with the courthouse, and the way things were organized for my particular case.

Now that it’s over I can tell you: It was double murder, gang related. The boy was up for the death penalty. Sucks for him, but really, he shouldn’t have done it in the first place. Sucks much more for my jury pool full of innocent people who were required to be at the courthouse for set periods of time and couldn’t leave. (how is this not imprisonment, I ask?)

Day 1 involved arriving at 7:30. 7:30!! Way too early. Watching the required propaganda video, filling out some form. And filling out another form that I was about to object to. It was a REQUIRED survey on which I had to write my name and juror ID. Oh my gosh, why are they allowed to make it required? And why do we have to sign our names? It was on how we got to court: Car, public transportation, if it was offered for free would you take a bus? (are they kidding? Girls like me DO NOT ride the bus into Compton. Why don’t they just ask me to leave my wallet unattended on the street)

And then we sit. Luckily I had massive amounts of reading to do. At 10 or so the judge, bailiff and lawyers all come down to the jury room. All of us are on the trial. We won’t fit into the courtroom, so they swear us in there. And we fill out a 20 page questionnaire. Which we’re supposed to return to the court room at 1:30. Massive time to kill. And even more trouble when we get to the room at 1:30, there’s not an orderly line, there’s just a mass. And for the entire time, no one orders anyone into a line, it’ s just a mob. So, 20 at a time we go into the courtroom, herded like cattle, and they give us a time to return. This whole process takes like a million years, and it seems like longer because there are so many people around, accidentally brushing against each other and the AC appears to not be working.

So, I return on my appointed day and time. And after 3 hrs of waiting I’m given another time to return. And on 3rd day I’m supposed to return, the court calls me and gives me another day.

And I go on that day, waste another 4 hrs (plus travel), and they give us a phone number to call to see if we have to go back in. The group before me had to go. And finally, I was dismissed.

Yes, jury duty is my civic duty, and I wouldn’t mind serving on a reasonably lengthed trial that doesn’t start at the end of one semester (With a big paper due) and end at the start of a new semester (where both my professors are new to me, and I’m taking an all online class for the first time and I don’t really know how I’m going to take to it). But, I think everyone has a larger civic duty to overhaul the jury duty system again. Like I said before, absolutely nothing I did (Besides buy food) couldn’t have been done remotely. What I’m saying now is that it SHOULD be done remotely. And on this issue alone, I will win governorship, when I decide to run. (Which is good because there aren’t enough teachers and librarians in California to support me alone). It’s really too bad this blog can’t be erased forever, because it’ll really hold me back when the press gets wind.

Also, when you’re hiring the person to run the jury room, the one who has to pronounce all the names for roll call, you should really hire people who can speak clear English. It’s nice that they let people who butcher the language have well paid civil service jobs. But maybe they should take the public into account.