Dammit, I've drunk the last of the sangria. Of course I have no more alcohol in the house, do you know I can't afford to be an alcoholic... Anyway, school begins tomorrow, yay. And I am also up for jury duty in a month, something I found out when I picked up my mail yesterday. At least I have the comfort of knowing that I am not going to be dealing with the madhouse that is the Miami-Dade Circuit Court; I live in tiny, half-suburbia, half-wildlife-refuge Seminole county now. (Must pat self on back for not moving to the Orlando area and thus Orange County, which is almost as bad as Miami-Dade.) Perhaps I will get a juicy case I won't be able to blog about. More likely, I'll call in and they'll tell me they don't need me.
Posted by Andrea Harris at January 6, 2003 12:54 AMYou know, you're not allowed to do jury service here if you're a student. How come you have to do it over there?
I'd love to do jury duty in Miami/Dade. Whenever I pick up a book, Hall, Hiassen, Willeford, etc there are stories about courthouses full of freaks. And that's just the onlookers!
I got called up about two years ago. I spent all day in the waiting area but never got my name pulled out of the lottery. Too bad, there were a couple of juicy murders and a particularly nasty arson case. Still, 36 bucks for the day ($US18) is bugger all when compared to a day at the coalface.
Posted by: Tony.T at January 6, 2003 at 01:59 AMFreaks is right. Really, though, jury selection in Miami is so tedious, because there are so many trials, and so many jurors, and you have to stay in this big room and watch awful Billy Crystal movies. (Or go to the smoking room -- that's probably gone, though.) I had to go three times to wait in the pool, and never got picked. The closest I got was to sit in the hallway where we got to watch manacled prisoners being taken in and out of a doorway. Joy.
About the student thing -- the only things the letter listed was stuff like being handicapped or taking care of a sick relative or something. So I don't know.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 6, 2003 at 02:29 AMNice to be a lawyer. You mention it during jury selection, and they shoot you out of there like poop from a goose.
Posted by: Steve H. at January 6, 2003 at 11:28 AMOr an engineer. Engineers don't believe anything, so I am told.
Posted by: David Perron at January 6, 2003 at 12:45 PMTony,
Where do you live? Outside the U.S., I gather, because I'd think there'd be constitutional problems with excluding a whole class of people (e.g., students) from the jury pool.
Steve,
The Dean Emeritus of my law school (Tulane) got through and served on several juries. But then, that's Orleans Parish District Court, where anything can happen and, unfortunately, usually does.
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 6, 2003 at 06:30 PM"...awful Billy Crystal movies."? You got off lightly. Last time I did jury duty, the big screen TV in the jury pool room was set to "The Jerry Springer Show". The horror, the horror!
Posted by: John F. MacMichael at January 6, 2003 at 07:33 PMDavid, I live in Australia and if you are a Teacher, Student, Self Employed, Doctor, etc, you get the idea, super-important people, you can be called up but they can't make you sit. You just say, sorry, busy today.
Imagine getting to serve on one of Steve.H's cases. "Do you know anyone here", "Err, no I know no-one, not even the Miracle Whip addict in the suit"
And when I got called up it was in my previous life as an Engineer and we had to sit through Jerry Springer, Oprah, Sally Jesse and Ricky Lake.
Kill! Kill! Kill!
Posted by: Tony.T at January 7, 2003 at 12:31 AMDavid:
One of my law professors--a conservative, if you can imagine that happening--managed to get himself impaneled briefly.
But the general rule is, you dump the lawyers FAST, because a) it's an expected professional courtesy, and b) they can see through all your B.S.
Posted by: Steve H. at January 8, 2003 at 09:40 AM