It may not work this way in other cities but when you serve in Los Angeles, you bring your jury summons with you on the day you report for service. They send it to you well in advance, you register by phone or online and then you bring the summons to the jury room on the morning on which you're told to show up.
The summons has questions on it which you answer in writing and then, at the end of the orientation, they tell you to pass your filled-out summons down to the person at the end of your aisle. Someone on their staff comes by and picks them up and that's how they know who has reported for duty that day. The nice lady who conducted the orientation told us about this at least five times. Over and over, she said, "If you don't hand in your summons, we have no way of knowing you're here. You will not get credit for your service today if you don't hand in your summons."
As I was sitting there, I was somewhat amazed at how everything was explained to us not once but several times…and especially we were told we had to turn in our summonses in order to get credit for being there. Were there really people who were so stupid that you had to tell them this five times?
Turns out the answer to that is yes. And they still wouldn't get it.
When we were dismissed at the end of the day, it worked like this: One by one, our names were read off — this was to make sure we were still in the room — and you were to answer "Here!" Then you were to go up to a clerk, turn in your plastic badge holder and pick up one of those certificates that said you'd completed your jury service. Then you were free to go. My name was among the last ones called and I made a stop in the men's room before I turned in my holder and got my certificate…so I was one of the last ones out.
The woman who passed out the certificates was talking with a befuddled lady who was holding her summons. This was a good eight hours after we were told five times to turn them in. She was being admonished as follows…
"You were supposed to turn that in at the end of the orientation this morning. We told you several times and everyone else turned theirs in. Didn't you see everyone else passing theirs to the end of the aisle? You've been sitting here all day holding onto it and now you're not going to get credit for your service! You're going to have to come back another day and do it again!"
That's kind of a frightening thought. If you live in Los Angeles, you might want to be real careful to not do anything that could cause you to be charged with a crime. That woman might be among those deciding if you go to prison and share a cell with a guy named Spider.