Jury Duty Day 1
January 12th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Oh my dear blog, how I have ignored you. Whoops. Someone care to make a new year’s resolution about blogging more often? Maybe later.
On to our topic at hand. I got called for jury duty! I’m one of these people who hates uncertainty. The minimal amount of information provided on the mailed summons along with the fact that everyone knows there’s no way to determine how many days, what case you’ll be assigned, etc., just drove me crazy going into it. Therefor I decided to take meticulous notes about my experience in case there’s another like me out there, nervous for jury duty in the Bronx, New York.
For those who’d rather the digest version: day 1. Did not get assigned to a case. Boring as predicted. Going back tomorrow for more of the same.
And for those who want the detailed version, here we go. If you’re about to embark on this, I might suggest you read the meager information on the official New York State Juror page for the Bronx. I won’t cover that stuff again below, and you can get a sense of what I knew going into it.
The drive was about 30 minutes from Riverdale, which was not surprising since I took 87. Discounted parking is in the Central Parking Systems lot for the indoor/outdoor mall across from the Bronx Hall of Justice. Jurors are supposed to park on level G1, but I did G2 and no one minded. I think you’re just not supposed to park on the surface level in favor of one of the underground ones. You park yourself, not valet, so this means you can visit the car during the day if you need to. That’s nice. Then you walk through a passageway that takes you through part of the mall to get out. Don’t be one of those people who walks up the “no pedestrians” ramp!
Since my summons was blue, I had duty in the shiny, new, glassy Bronx Hall of Justice. Folks with red summonses went down the street to the more traditional looking Bronx County Courthouse. The first thing when you walk in, of course, is the security check. There are two lines, one for the public and one just for jurors to the right. It’s like the airport but you can keep your shoes and coat on through the metal detector. The line was long but moving, although sometimes got a little stopped up when multiple people in a row beeped going through the metal detector. Here I learned things you can and cannot bring:
- Jury can bring lunch, or any food they want really. Even take-out drinks that don’t go through the xray machines are okay. I was relieved, no fast food for me, whew!
- You can bring your cell phone even if it has a camera, even though the summons says not to. Like the security guy said, “it’s unavoidable these days.”
- Do not bring glass containers. Is this a sporting event?
- I did not encounter the laptop question, but to be safe I might leave it at home.
- People definitely had iPods, as expected.
Once through security we were directed into the hall of jurors, a big, auditorium-style room. There are rows of seats which are sometimes hard to get out of (climbing over people) and have arms so not good for the structurally wide folks. Benches also line the perimeter. There’s a vending machine lounge to the left and a reading room, complete with a handful of books, on the right. Restrooms to the rear. I couldn’t decide if the contemporary architecture and interior design was a relief from the neoclassic and 70′s sterile institutional buildings one usually sees, or if it was straight out of a big brother-type scifi film.
When all was said and done there were definitely 200 or more people in the room (I am bad at estimating crowds). The racial makeup looked about like the Bronx as a whole from what I could tell, and people seemed fairly evenly divided among different ages. There were definitely people in tee shirts, hoodies, jeans.
Nothing happened for a long time, as potential jurors were still going through security. We had to be there at 9, and the first preliminary announcements were made at 9:25. Just some general things determining if people were in the right place. At 9:38 the real deal started. Lots of things were announced, including valid reasons to request not to be there:
- Supposed to be in class during the day (not currently on winter break)
- Not a US citizen
- Felon
- Can prove no longer a resident of the Bronx
- Extenuating child care issue
- Doctor’s note saying specifically must not serve on a jury
Those folks were sent down the road to make their “case” at the courthouse. The rest, we were told, would have to stay. Even people who:
- Claimed not to speak English – apparently a lot of people said this to get out of jury duty. The court would then call their employer, call their house at random, and all sorts of other methods to try to determine if they actually spoke English. They reported that 90% of the people did and were lying, so decided not to waste the time and now this is no longer an excuse. This means, interestingly, that some cases will have actual non-English speakers as jurors. Hmm.
- Have a note from their employer
- Are in school but on break
We followed the instructions on filling out and separating parts of our summons and turned in the relevant parts in baskets at the front. Parking tickets were stamped for a discount. For those wondering, the cheesy introduction video was not shown even though there were a couple of nice LCD screens in the room. I’m sad, I heard so much about it!
After this there was a lot of waiting. Please, anyone who has jury duty, bring a book or newspaper, your knitting or anything. You are going to be so bored otherwise.
Three cases that were continuing from last week were called before anything else. The first new potential panel was assembled at 11:40. See, lots of waiting! Maybe 6-8 other groups were assembled during the day. I was not one of them. 50 people were called at once. Each time a subgroup of jurors were returned to the pool after a period of questioning (I read about that). Some were called, came back, and got called again later. The guys up in the front calling the names remind me of the banker on Deal or No Deal – the fact that they know the news first and their seriousness.
Lunch was from 12:30-2. I get the feeling that lunch is 1-2, but if they’re fairly sure nothing interesting will happen between 12:30 and 1 we get to leave for lunch early. I ate my healthy-ish food in the main lobby of the building and went for a walk. It was cold, and there were no stores I particularly wanted to visit. The line was long going back into the building.
More groups were assembled in the afternoon, up until a bit after 3. We, those who were not called, were dismissed at 3:30. My guess is that they don’t want to start anything that late in the day. I got about 70 pages of reading done, not bad considering the interruptions. Yay, I don’t read enough usually!
Parking was $13 with the discount, a little steep. They take credit cards, but the attendant I had did not have a pen for me to sign. A bit of a rocky ride home on 87, traffic is always bad because of the GW Bridge.
So, we’re to return tomorrow by 9:30! This time I will be bringing:
- My book
- Lunch (plus a napkin, forgot today)
- My phone and its charger (I did spot some outlets, and knowing how much I’ll want to play on the phone I’ll need that)
- Coffeeeeee!
Come back tomorrow for more tales of jury duty! And some further reading, other people’s experiences: tale of a one-day trial and this more comedic one.
Tags: jury duty, nyc
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