I won't be posting this 'til I get home but right now, it's 11 AM and I'm in Room 302 on the 11th floor of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in picturesque Downtown Los Angeles. That's right: Mark has jury duty.
The summons said I had to be here at 7:45 AM which for a night person like I am sounds like greater punishment than is likely to be handed out in any courtroom in this building today. Fortunately, I discovered that if one takes an online orientation course, one can report a little later. Last night, I watched the videos and answered questions…and as my reward, I got to be here at 9:30. So I drove down in a light rain, parked where they tell you to park and hiked several blocks to this imposing structure. The route between the lot and here is quite long and by some distortion of science that otherwise exists only in M.C. Escher prints, it's uphill in both directions.
I am here under the assumption that I will not get on a jury…not that I will try not to, but it's hereditary. My father had jury duty many times. Never got on. My mother was once an extra playing a juror on L.A. Law…and remind me to tell you that story some day. She had an interesting encounter with Jimmy Smits. But the folks who pick real jurors wouldn't cast her. The last time I had jury duty, I sat there all day talking comics with one of my best friends, Scott Shaw!, who by coincidence had jury duty the same day I did. I didn't even get called to go off to a courtroom and be considered for an actual jury.
I got here on time…and don't think that's easy. The hard part was fighting my way onto an elevator amidst a horde of people who didn't seem to understand that when a car full of people arrives, you have to wait until they get off before you can get on. I finally boarded a car thanks to a lawyer (I guess he was a lawyer) who was directing traffic while he negotiated a plea bargain for some client on his cell phone.
One disadvantage of reporting late was that all the good seats in the jury waiting room were taken before I arrived. This included the dozen-or-so seats where I could have had a little table on which to use the laptop I hauled here along with me. Some were occupied by folks who had not brought laptops or work to do and who didn't seem to notice (or maybe care) that some of us had. I was about to go over to one and propose a seat swap but before I could, someone else with a laptop did and got rebuffed. And rather rudely at that. So I had to wait until a number of folks were called away to courtrooms before I could pounce on my present workspace.
The way this works is that we sit here and every so often, they call out names picked at random and those folks report to other locales in the building where they will be interrogated on their suitability and availability to serve for the particular trial. If they don't get selected, they come back here and their names are put back in the pool. The first such pick was for a trial which we could refuse because it will last an estimated ninety days.
When the lady who calls the names said that, there was a loud "Whoa" from the room and it sounded like everyone would be declining. But a surprising, perhaps encouraging number of folks said yes, they'd be willing to serve on a jury that lasted that long. These people have either a stirring sense of civic duty or an employer who pays full wages when you're on a jury. I have neither so I'd have declined if they'd called my name which, of course, they didn't. Two more groups of prospective jurors have since been called and my name was not among those the lady mispronounced.
So what do I do instead? Well, now that I have a little desk space, I can sit here and work and write stuff for the blog. It's 11:16.