Why do I keep getting called for jury duty and no one around me here is getting called as often as I have been according to them and why is the court system so unorganized when it comes to handling jury service?
Part of the reason, I learn, is that since the pool comes from two lists, the Driver's License roll and the Voter Registration roll, one should put her Driver's License number on her Voter Registration roll information to basically keep from being "double pooled." (I guess the problems with combining the lists are insurmontable, more so than putting up with the inequitableness of the process. Not enough people have complained, enough?). That could only explain part of it however.
In a group of ten of us discussing this a couple of months ago at dinner, only two of us had been called more than once in the last ten years, some had never been called. All registered voters and licensed drivers.
I am not joking when I say that one of my friends, when she went to purchase a new home, purposely got it just over a county line that was not the county where she kept getting called for jury duty. She didn't have a problem with serving if it was spread around. Same here. I would even volunteer and not have to be "summoned" (by the way, it always happens at the most inconvenient times) if they could get a little more organized (see below).
I was asked once if I would be interested in volunteering for Federal (grand jury) court service. You have rush hours in your life, and that was at a rush hour, so to speak. I would consider seeking to volunteer for a six week Federal service stint, especially when I retire, which quite honestly, I probably will never retire, so I should set a new marker for that service.
Of course, I would be a bit wary if I ever needed a jury and to have it too stacked with people purposefully loving to serve on juries or only retirees or almost all elderly people. I've read a John Grisham novel before. I'm onto you, you jury stacker.
Well, they called up a group of us to come be considered to serve on jury duty, and it was more filled with Richardson people proportionally than it would seem ordinary (I found out it was later, see below). After waiting around for a couple of hours at one place, they pulled the Richardson people and a few nearby Richardson (going by zipcode) out of the pile, sent us a good ways away over to another place, gave us some time (cutting it very close) to get there, to hurry up and wait, to serve on a small claims court case (petit) this time in front of a County JP. We waited around a couple more hours. At one point they made us line up, standing for what seemed like forever. The benches left empty. There were some people who this was not good for because of their physical state. And shoes. Wear comfortable shoes. Fortunately, I always try to.
It was lunch time and the smell of employees microwaving or opening their lunches wafted into the hallway. We finally got into the court room. Crickets and tumbleweeds when the JP/judge said it was nearing re-election time, basically not so smoothly hinting (campaigning from the bench) that support to keep the good ol' judge there was desirable. The JP stated the JP's qualifications and record (how many evictions cases, etc.). Now that I think about it, I can't help but wonder if this was the real reason why it was arranged to be principally an audience of people eligible to vote for the JP (using our zipcodes as opposed to just being left pooled county wide as we had been before being separated off)? The reasoning described was that we would be close to where we needed to go afterwards, but the JP did not know where we all worked, etc. even if it was known where we lived. Good grief. I hope not. Now that I think about that, it wouldn't surprise me, but I hope not. You'll have to forgive me for being suspicious after what the JP said and did, but based on what I have seen happen with my own two eyes and ears recently, it might pay to be.
About half were released from duty, not needed, not selected. That is often necessary and understandable, but citizens should be treated a little better when they are there. At the first court, the metal detector guards yelled at two poor guys when they didn't get their change off the belt and out of the basket as quick as they wanted. There wasn't even a line waiting or anything. They were bizarrely rude. And when I left they were yelling something to a guy about his hips "going to hit" something when he was a couple of feet away from anything. It is not like we are criminals or anything (except one did admit to being convicted of theft, at the first court, so was ineligible to serve).
Voir dire (using the term loosely, I am meaning only the part of the process where potential jurists are questioned in order to select or strike them from being on the jury) doesn't seem to typically take anywhere near as long in petit civil court case jury selection, especially if neither side has hired an attorney (some do). (In criminal and larger civil cases, depending, they have jury selection consultants at the elbow in some of those. I was at one that took more than a day in jury selection/voir dire and I swear they asked us everything but what color underwear we had on.)
Well, fast forward. That go around was over, at least for the next few months. It sure was a very impressive group of citizens. I can only hope they would put themselves in another pool, a pool to make themselves available to be considered for another type of equally important, but more intensive, public service.
