I completely ignored it for two reason: the first, fuck you, no one summons me except for the Lord our God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and, second, because of that episode of The Simpsons when Apu becomes a citizen and then, at the very end, receives a summons for jury duty and then throws it out.
Some time later, I received a more threatening questionnaire, stating that they had sent me one before this and that I had not responded and that, by doing so again, I'm open to jail time and fines and molly flogging, etc.
So, I responded with the following message, jotted on the back of their smug little declaration:
Some time after that I received my actual summons instructing me to call a robot after office hours on a Friday, at which point I found out that I had to appear at 9 am on the following Monday.
You clever, fucking shitbags.
As I was scheduled to record for a NYSE voice over, I was, understandably,. perturbed when every single number listed, even the emergency numbers which were printed in big, red numbers all directed me to offices that would open a half hour before I had to be at the courthouse which, because fuck you, was NOT the courthouse within walking distance from my home, but, rather, the one forty minutes away.
Well played.
You fucks.
Luckily, the producer was super-awesome and, after an e-mail or two, we rescheduled for 6 pm on Tuesday evening.
Anyway, I won't bore you with all the details of what transpired during my two days involved with jury duty*, I'll just touch on some of the things that really blew me away.
First, there was the vast amount of time that was wasted. Now, I am aware that I've never been on the other side of certain events; concerts, jury duty and other occurrences in life that seem to take an inordinate amount of time to those not involved, but I cannot wrap my head around the staggering amount of time it took to actually accomplish anything! I was there from 9 am until 3:45 pm. In that time, there was maybe...sixty solid minutes of something actually happening. The person who was to be tried, was arrested in November of 2011. What the fuck is taking so long?!
But, again, I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes...maybe I need to talk to a lawyer or something.
So, there was the fat and sludgy misuse of time; then, there were the people.
I don't know if it was the people in charge or the potential jurors, but somewhere along the line, either the chicken or the egg got real stupid. We were treated partially like 2nd graders and partially like cows with learning disabilities but, the thing is, everyone was acting like 2nd graders and/or cows with learning disabilities. At no point did I feel like anything other than a cog. A dumb, blunt cog. Who wasn't sure if you wanted my date of birth or today's date or where are my hands, I forgot.
The phrase that kept coming back to me was "a jury of one's peers".
I was too sad to laugh.
This continued into the court room. Here, it makes a little more sense; these laywers don't know who their potential jurors are or if they've veer watched television or seen a movie or read a book, and, therefore, explained everything as slowly and as clearly as they could...it was like...you know what it was like? Back when it looked like I might lose the sight in both my eyes, my parents looked into the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind and I was sent to their summer program, in order to see what the place was like. However, the majority of the other kids there also had development disabilities that had occurred with the loss of their eyesight. Not all of them, but a good number.
As a result, I felt like I was in an asylum at times. It was horrible and terrifying and, after two weeks of the eight week program, I told my parents to get me the fuck out of there, which, thankfully, they did.
Anyway, once the lawyers (well, one was a lawyer who happened to look and sound exactly like George Bluth's surrogate from Arrested Development** and the other was an assistant DA) were done finding out if we had to poo poo or knew what poo poo was, they began to ask the potential jurors THE MOST THINLY VEILED QUESTIONS EVER. Such as "if you saw me with an umbrella and then drop it and run away and then you asked me if this was my umbrella and I said it wasn't and that I had just found it...who's umbrella would it seem to be?"
Forgot to mention, the case centered around a dude who was caught with, not one, not two, but with THREE loaded guns on his person, one of which had the serial number defaced.
Golly golly gosh, I wonder if his story is going to sound something like "I picked up the three guns but then put them down and walked away".
There was a lot more stuff like this which was just silly and I'll spare you the details.
Partly because I think I may be breaking some law or other just typing this here...I think.
But, hey, based on how slow everything works, I would be caught and called on charges until I've been dead for forty years.
So, after watching these people be pandered to, on my second day I was called into the box and given a bunch of questions. In the end, I answered them all truthfully and was let go. Along with everyone else who answered intelligently and with a touch of basic understanding of the events unfolding around them.
It appears that the lawyers wanted the slowest and/or non-thinking people in the group...I guess. Again, I've never been on the other side of these proceedings, and, beyond simple logic, the voir dire process is a mystery to me.
Some random things and then I'll gavel you:
Utter astonishment at the effort and expense put into wasting the time of over a thousand people every day. I am floored.
As it so happened, Bill Zeiser (a year behind me at Fordham, think I met him once at a party thrown by Christina Andrews) ended up sitting about ten feet behind me in the initial jury/cattle room. We were in the same group throughout and thus, hung with each other. Also, as it happened, one that first day, he and I had both worn bright orange shirts. At the end of our first day, we decided to wear navy blue shirts the next day, purple shirts the third day and, finally, if things went on this long, full on black suits the fourth day. Although we only made it two days, we did have a woman comment "you guys must color coordinate or something". Phase one was complete. Now...we take them down from the inside...
Or we would have if we'd been there more than two days.
And, speaking of shirts***, the navy blue shirt I decided to wear that second day was my one and only Cake shirt. It has a picture of a tree and the word "cake" on it. When I was being questioned by the assistant DA, he looked at my shirt and said, "Cake...the band, not the food, right? They're good" I nodded and responded, "They are. The food is also good."
If this weren't fun enough on its own merit...the above exchange is now in the official transcript of those proceedings. Forever.
I'll leave you with that.
Also: Matlock. Perry Mason. Lionel Hutz. The noise from "Law & Order".
* Too late.
** Yeah, could not make eye contact with the guy for fear of laughing like a mad man in his face.
*** TOTALLY NOT A BULLSHIT SEGUE! OH CHRIST I CANNOT WAIT FOR YOU TO CONTINUE READING TO SEE HOW APT THIS SEGUE REALLY IS!!!!!!!
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