So, last week I had jury duty,
again.
This time it was at a different courthouse than my previous jury duty in 2013. I had to go to 111 Centre Street, room 1121. I think this was a New York County court rather than a state one, I don't know.
I got there around 8am, an hour early for the 9am time. I walked around outside for a little bit, then decided to go through the security stuff early, before any lines formed up. Security was easy, the guards barely paid attention to me, and once I'd walked through the metal detector and my stuff passed through the x-ray machine, they no longer even looked my direction.
Upstairs on the 11th floor I had a while to wait. I snapped a few photos of the view just after sunrise. Then I saw the sign that said no photographs may be taken under any circumstances. Although judging by the security cameras on the ceiling, there are circumstances...
The head clerk was the same fellow as last time, seven years ago, William T. Stevenson. He was pretty cool, with a very positive attitude about, well, everything. Actually, it was reassuring, considering how stressful I find jury duty.
The clerks began the orientation for jurors at just after 9am, showing us a video and giving us instructions on filling out a small demographic form, then turning in our juror ballots so they know who all is there.
Then we waited. And waited. One of the clerks, Mr. Stevenson, occasionally let us know that they were "waiting for work" to come from the judges.
About 10% of the jurors in the room were clearly sick, coughing, sneezing and sniffling pretty steadily. There wasn't a "sick section," they were scattered around so there wasn't anywhere to escape the risk of infection.
Around 11am the clerks announced that a civil trial was sending up some lawyers to us to find some jurors, which was unusual instead of us going to them in a courtroom.
When the lawyers entered it was obvious who they were, their suits were definitely high quality, way above what the only male clerk, or the two male jurors who came in suits were wearing.
They gave us in the jury pool a quick introduction to their case, asbestos poisoning. They said it would last about 6 weeks, and listed the dates, which in my head I totaled up to just under 8 weeks. Then they handed out a questionnaire to everyone, which also listed the dates of the trial, just under 8 weeks.
We stood up, raised our right hands and swore an oath, then sat down to fill in the questionnaires. The first question was if we would face any hardships sitting on a jury for that length of time. Of course, I would, so I wrote an essay there about being the sole breadwinner of my household and that missing my regular paychecks for that duration would be a hardship, but if absolutely required I could sell some assets, pawn some items, or pay my rent on a credit card.
Another question was "have you ever been in jury selection for another asbestos case?" For that,
I checked "yes" because, in fact, I have.
The lawyers then gathered up the questionnaires from everyone and went into a small side room to go through them. It wasn't very long before they went to the clerks and asked for a small number of people to come forward. I wasn't one of them, but the discussion was loud enough to hear, that they picked those jurors who would then go home and on some specific evening call the courthouse for instructions where to appear the following day.
The clerk then asked us if we wanted our questionnaires back or we would be ok with him shredding them in the room in front of us. He made it clear that whatever we chose, he would release us for lunch after he finished whichever choice, and if we wanted them back it would take a lot longer to call people one-by-one to come up and get their own than for him to stuff the papers in the shredder... We chose shredder...
Then it was out for an hour and a half lunch break. The whole jury selection process is monstrously stressful for me, so I didn't think I could eat without tossing it back up. I just walked around the neighborhood for a while, getting fresh air. It's nice walking around that area on a workday, when I'm usually in my office elsewhere.
After returning from my walk I bought a couple of bags of chips from the vending machine in the jurors' assembly room, one of plantains and one of corn chips.
The afternoon session was pretty similar. We sat around, the clerk came around everyone now and then to let us know that we were "waiting for work" from the judges, but that there simply weren't any trials starting that needed jurors.
This went on till about 3:30pm when the clerk, Mr. Stevenson, said he'd called the judge and there wasn't anything going on, so he got permission to release us, not just for the day, but from this summons. He had us stick around while they distributed the letters to keep that said we served and the courts under the state system cannot call us back for another four years (used to be six, but the laws changed).
And that was that for me, I walked up to Canal Street and took an N train back home, getting there slightly earlier than I would on a normal workday.
Honestly, I feel a little guilty that twice now I've gotten out of my civic duty based on money. It's supposed to be something of a sacrifice for the greater good of society, etc. I get that, I'm willing to make some sacrifice. But both times, eight weeks out of work was just too much. I'd have had to either sell off assets or go into debt, paying rent and buying food on a credit card, in order to serve. I know if I ended up on one of those juries, I'd spend eight weeks sitting in the courtroom seething, angry that the judge is getting paid to be there, the lawyers big bucks, probably, to be there, the clerks, the bailiffs, the reporter, the expert witnesses, the news reporters, almost everyone else getting paid to be there, while I'd be there myself paying to be part of it.
I mean, I'd've been willing to serve on a jury for a trial a few days, one, two, five, six, 10 even, you know, in length, I could swing that. It'd only be a minor dent in my finances. But eight weeks would just be crushing.
