OK, I am sworn not to tell anyone anything about the trial, but that's cool because it's more fun to talk about the slack-jawed idiots bumping around the halls (and I'm not talking about just the lawyers).
Well, the day started off promisingly, when I looked online and discovered my jury group, out of the dozens listed, had been moved to a courthouse just down the street from my home. I got ready, grabbed my Harry Potter book and walked down to the couthouse, marveling at how early the crack heads get up to start their daily crack-search.
The court metal detector was no problem and I soon found myself relaxing in a movie-theater type seat with about 300 other people. Now, I use the term "people" loosely, keep in mind this is all taking place in downtown San Francisco.
The first thing I noticed was that, despite the fact that the letter they send has your jury number, jury group number, name and address, date and location of the jury summons AND the contact information for jury-related services, there were people that were late (not just hours late but days late), they showed up in the wrong place and there was one guy that didn't even have his own jury summons. "Sir, that isn't even your name on the jury summons. You aren't the person that was summoned."
I am dead serious folks, this was the point at which I payed $1.75 for a stale donut.
Eventually, after many other people were called to various courtrooms and even other courthouses (hah! suckers!), my name was called and I had to negotiate a couple huge fatasses that were trying to shuffle through the double door together creating a tuperware-tight seal on the only exit.
But I digress, I ended up in a courtroom with exactly 66 other potential jurers (don't ask how I know that number, I assure you it's very boring). We got a short introduction then most of us were excused for two hours while the rest stayed behind to make up excuses for why they were too important to be in a jury.
At this point it became obvious that I needed to find my favorite hole-in-the-wall bar near Civic Center, my only refuge when serving jury duty or while my car is getting smog checked. I met another jurer (am I spelling that right, looks stupid) from my group and we had a laugh about all the mutants in the courtroom we just left.
I meant to stay for one drink but the bartender decided to pour me a few and tell me about the man who wants to shoot her and how he is getting out of jail tomorrow but that's OK because that's the day he must show up to court for attempted murder charges. Those were all the details I could get between drunken old people yelling (this is all still before noon), the strange women comming in to pick up "their money" and the guys selling DVD's of movies currently showing in the theater.
Anyway, around one I amble back into the courtroom and continue to read Harry Potter (man that kid has some shitty luck). At this point they have randomely selected 18 people to sit in the jury and asked them a lot of boring questions. A bunch got excused and a bunch got randomely called up to take their place.
After about an hour of this the beer must have gotten bored because it wanted to go so I asked the baliff if I could piss. As I'm leaving I hear the judge call, "Why has he been excused?" but I also hear the call of nature, guess which one I ignore. Well, apparently I started some sort popular trend because when I turned to leave the restroom there was a line that consisted of every male from the courtroom I had just left as well as the district attorny and the defendant, all thanking me for prompting the judge to give us a bathroom break.
The judge made it clear I was to ask her next time I had to use the facilities and she would call a recess. I think there is going to be a lot of recesses during this trial.
Anyway, they asked the new replacements the same boring questions and excused some more people. They just didn't excuse new people, they excused some that they questioned earlier but didn't excuse the first time. What in the f***?!?!?
So, by the time I started to actually tell jokes to the few remaining potential jury people and the baliff, it looked like we were getting close to time for us to head home. Unfortunatly someone suddenly lost the ability to speak english and another person had some kind of flashback to an incident in her life that made her too emotionally distraught to make a fair decission and I was called up along with a deaf man (who also didn't speak english).
Well, it was looking pretty good after the last batch of people were asked to leave, despite the fact I wasn't one of them. I even told the story about how, when I was around 9, my babysitter's ex-boyfriend forced his way into my house to beat my babysitter and I had to chase him off with an aluminum bat!
The top two rows had the 12 selected jury members and the two "alternates" 13 & 14 sat to my right. I was going to get to go home having done my civic duty! I was only going to have to go through one day of idiotic legal babble and probbing personal questions!
But no, suddenly the greesy little baggy-jeaned teenage f*** to my right suddenly doesn't understand what "alternate" means and the fact of this realization startles the poor greesy pre-pube so much that he loses all ability to speak and even the ability to nod and shake his head. After it becomes clear that the only response the judge is going to get from this jerk is a sort of grunting noise while his head makes this curious circular motion she exuses him and I get to be Alternate #2.
Now, just to let some of you less civicly inclined people know, Alternate #2 gets the great job of showing up every day, listening to all the testimony, paying attention to all the details and taking notes without all of the hassle of actually DOING ANYTHING. That is, unless not one, but two people suddenly come down with some mysterious ailment (I'm hoping for lung cancer, only thing that can take them down in a weeks time)
I think I will bring things to throw at people tomorrow.
-420
