Concluding my diary from yesterday…
A few minutes before Noon, we're dismissed for lunch and told to report back at 1:30. As we file out, a video extols the glories of many nearby eateries…and I'd been thinking of hiking down to the Grand Central Market, where wondrous foodsellers abound. But it's semi-rainy and it takes forever to get an elevator down, which means it'll take forever-and-a-half to get an elevator back up to the 11th floor. It also dawns on me that if I come back early, I can probably claim one of the few seats where I can work on my laptop. So I decide to just duck down to the in-house cafeteria, come back up and begin writing.
On the way out of the waiting room, I bend over to pick up something and hear the sound of trouser-fabric tearing. This is not a good sound to hear, especially out in public.
A hasty sprint to a Men's Room stall later, I check and discover that I have somehow — don't ask me how, I have no idea — engineered a seven-inch tear in the front of my jeans. It starts just to the left of the fly about halfway down and continues on into my inseam. I figure that if I hold my laptop case in the proper position, no one will notice it. Later, I discover that depending on how I sit in any chair, I am subject to some interesting breezes.
In the cafeteria, I eat a very good hot turkey sandwich and some very bad mashed potatoes. How is it, I wonder, that there are bad mashed potatoes in this world? It's not like this is a complicated recipe. I'm not sure if they're instant or not…but if they're not, they should be. The basic Betty Crocker mix yields a better result.
And now it's 1:15 and I'm back at the same little desk in Room 302, waiting to hear if I have to report somewhere. The place is packed — barely enough chairs for the number of bodies. The Van Nuys courthouse, where Scott and I had our little mini-con, offered a room that looked like a shabby bus terminal but it was a lot more comfy than this one.
The potential jurors seem like a nice mix of Angelenos, weighted a bit heavy on minorities, especially Hispanic and Asian. It's hard to guess what all these people do for a living but I'd guess more blue collar than white collar and not a lot in managerial positions. One gent — the one who was using this workspace before he was called to a courtroom and I commandeered the desk — was obviously a lawyer or the next best thing. He spent his whole time here on his laptop and cellphone, talking about depositions and filing paperwork with some judge. What are the odds another attorney will want this man on a jury he has to convince?
As I eye the others in the room, I ask myself, "If I were on trial for a murder I hadn't committed, would I worry if these people would be the ones passing judgment?" There are a few I'd insist my lawyers exclude but all in all, they look like a smart crowd. Then again, I think the first O.J. jury came out of this room.
We wait. And wait. And wait some more. Two more long trials are announced and on these, we have the option of opting out. This time, most people do, perhaps because the folks who could serve on a long case are still elsewhere in the building, being considered for that 90-day one. There are also two more trials where we can't demur, where we have to go to the courtroom and be considered for service…but as ever, my name is not called.
So I sit here, alternately working on this and on an article that's due, congratulating myself on the wisdom of bringing the laptop and getting back from lunch early enough to grab this little desk. Every so often, I shift in the chair and feel something that reminds me I'm now wearing split-crotch jeans. No one calls my name.
Around 4:15, they announce that there are no more trials so we'll be dismissed. Our names will be called and as they are, we're to yell "Here!" to prove we haven't snuck out prematurely, then we're to come up, turn in our badges and receive a certificate that we've completed our service. I wait and wait as perhaps 200 people are called…until my name is finally heard, about three from the end. I head up and out, keeping my laptop case strategically in front of me. The paper I receive will excuse me if I am summoned again for jury duty within the next year.
All done. There's a long uphill hike to where I parked, made more awkward by the need to walk with my computer held over my zipper, but that's all that stands between me and the resumption of life. I march with several of my fellow jurors, none of whom got anywhere near a jury box, either. A lady who lives out in Marina Del Rey tells me this is the fifth time she's served in eight years and her experience has been like mine. She never gets called, either.
She doesn't think it's Luck of the Draw. She thinks some higher power has just decided that folks like us will never be on a jury. I tell her I'm convinced that even if I was picked to be questioned, one attorney or the other would bump me. "That's what I mean," she says. "Some higher force has decided you'll never get seated on a jury so there's no point calling your name."
I ask, "Couldn't this higher force prevent me from getting picked for jury duty in the first place?"
She says, "Higher forces can't do everything. By the way, why are you walking like that?"