|
My Time in Prison (Or Jury Duty Diaries)
From PubClub.com's Social Columnist
Of all the great things there are to
do in this world with time – skiing in the Alps, sailing the Greek
Isles, going to Jimmy
Buffett concerts – one of the worst is jury
duty.
Never in my life have I felt so helpless, so useless, as when I was
called to the jury duty pool. Sitting for hours contributing absolutely
nothing to society – or to PubClub, for that matter –
is worse than hearing "last call" after waiting in line for
an hour at a raging bar.
Seems the California legislature has passed a new policy where everyone
must be called, regardless of employment or personal situation. No excuses.
Show up or they send the sheriff. They did this on their own, with no
public input. Of all the propositions we have to vote on in California
– at least a dozen per election – and this one goes through
without a public vote? I write this as a PubClub column with the knowledge
that several of our readers can relate to the experience. And it blows.
It's not the actual jury duty that's so bad, I suppose, but the process.
This is what it must be like in the actual prison. Witness:
• You are dragged there against your will.
• You sit and wait, hoping nothing bad is about to happen.
• There's precious little information available and absolutely
none on how the process works, so attempting to assess your situation
is completely useless. For example, if one does the courtroom equivalent
of sports' "faking an injury" (that is, to stretch the truth
for an excuse why you can't serve on a particular case) are you excused
or thrown back into the jury pool?
• You are told where to go, when to go there and have absolutely
no input into your own fate.
Those unfortunate enough to be actually assigned a case have it even
worse. After being herded into a room with some 50 other potential jurors
who don't want to be their either, there's the excruciating, nail-biting,
teeth-grinding, high-stress process hoping you don't get called to actually
serve.
I went through this in a new $100-million courthouse in Los Angeles.
It's in a pleasant enough setting, close enough, in fact, to lunch in
Manhattan
Beach and it has large windows that look out over a sunny,
busy freeway. It seems nice until you look at it this way: During a
break, I stared at the cars and could not help but think how F-R-E-E
the drivers in them were, that they could pretty much go anywhere they
wanted. How many, in fact, were headed for Vegas???
Then I noticed planes landing at LAX. Where were these people coming
in from and what would they be doing next? Not coming over for jury
duty, that's for sure!
Just out of view, planes were taking off every few seconds, bound for
grand places all over the globe. Tahiti, Australia. Europe. To Whistler
for skiing, those lucky hot dogs.
I could go to none of those places, of course. I was held captive inside
this glass cage, unable to go anywhere. Except back to the courtroom.
Perhaps there's a method to this madness. Officials may actually desire
to create this awful experience in order to discourage potential criminals
from going through with a crime by giving them a glimpse of what life
is like behind bars. It's not necessary in my case, but maybe for others
it is an effective crime-stopping strategy.
Whatever the reason, it ignores the basic point that very few people
want to be on jury duty. Is this what the judicial system really desires,
to have cases decided by people who just want to get the hell out of
there? Is this what either of the attorneys want? (Okay, nobody cares
what the attorneys want.) Is this fair to the plaintiff or the defendant?
The state?
Instead, I suggest using people who might actually want to serve (in
fact, I know of just such someone, and don't think it didn't cross my
mind to call him in to take my place). Take those who watch Judge Judy
or other fans of daytime courtroom shows. Use citizens who have plenty
of personal time to kill (they can be found at any Starbucks location).
It does create some comical moments, though. The reasons people come
up with to be excused are, at the very least, creative. In my jury pool,
there was the Hispanic lady who claimed she barely spoke English though
she answered each of the judge's questions with remarkable clarity.
She was dismissed. The Hollywood screenwriter from Marina dal Rey –
at least he seemed to be a Hollywood screen writer with black
mock turtleneck, leather jacket and briefcase, plus he's from Marina
del Rey – raising his hand at every opportunity while perched in
his very unenviable spot as Juror Number One.
For my part, I felt compelled to tell the judge I had the hots for
the prosecuting attorney. (Hey, she's a glasses girl!)
The lone positive experience? I got a column out of it.
The Bartender can be reached at bartender@pubclub.com
PubClub Home Page
|