Jury Duty (Long and boring). . .

. . . just like my last two days. I have been on jury duty since yesterday morning. It is an infuriating system, designed, apparently, by and for idiots. Since 9:00 yesterday morning, I have done nothing.


I arrived at the court at 9:00 yesterday. We sat until 10:15. Then they showed us a video explaining what an honor it was to sit there for an hour and fifteen minutes doing nothing. Then they put on C-Span so we could watch the legislatative branch of government doing just as wonderful a job as the judicial branch.


At 11:45, we were called into the courtroom. The judge explained to us that we 80 some odd people were part of the jury pool, from which 12 jurors and 2 alternates would be chosen. At 12:01, he looked at his watch, said that lunch is an hour and a half, but since it is already past 12:00, to report back at 1:45. At 2:10 we were let back into the courtroom. He then bored us to death for another hour, at which time he declared a 15 minute break.


The 15 minute break lasted another half an hour. When we got back in, they called 12 people to sit in the jury box. Before the judge or either lawyer could ask any questions, one lawyer had to leave because a verdict was coming in on another case he was handling. We were told to come report this morning at 9:00.


We go into the courtroom at 9. The judge strolls in at 9:30. Then they start asking completely irrelevant questions of all the jurors. By the time we left today at 4:20 (they work long, arduous days), they had gotten though about 20 of us.


HOW CAN A SYSTEM WHICH ALLOWS PARTICIPANTS TO SELECT JURORS BE FAIR? Perhaps HDPM or some of the other lawyers who post or lurk here can explain it to me. How can they let lawyers have peremptory challenges? It's like playing a ball game and letting the opposing managers choose the umpires.


This trial will undoubtedly last until the year 3000. You all know my feelings about guns, but I'm beginning to see the light. If I had one, I'd shoot both lawyers and the judge. Through the heart, dead.


Where is the urgency to get things done? How can they be so slow, so unprofessional, so uncaring about other people's (and the taxpayers') money and time? Why do they get up to ask a question and have to shuffle through a hundred pieces of paper and ask the same question the judge just asked? Why do they have to go to a sidebar to whisper things 56 times an hour?


Why do all of us have to sit there while they talk to other prospective jurors? Why is there only one elevator in the building? Why was my car dinged in the parking lot? Why does it take 3 or 4 or 20 days to pick a jury? Why don't they work more than an hour at a time without having to take a break? People were sleeping in the jury box. They were the lucky ones. The judge told the rest of us we were not allowed to go to the bathroom while the proceedings were going on, to take care of our toilet needs before we went into the courtroom. He didn't count on us having to throw up when we saw those proceedings.


I feel sorry for the man on trial. With all due respect to you attorneys out there, the system is a joke, a sad, inefficient, travesty of a joke. Surely verly little justice can ensue from such a system.


This was the Los Angeles County Court House in Beverly Hills, CA.