Federal Court Jury Summons
I hope I don’t get on a jury. Some of those federal ones go forever, especially financial crimes. But I have actually no possible excuse; I’m their ideal juror.
At least it’s a call-in thing. Unless I get called I won’t have to spend too much time in the airless Santa Ana Federal District Court Building.
Waaah! I don’t want to join this Justice League!
Be My Blog 
I sometimes think it would be interesting to be on a jury but Greg the ADA assures me it will never happen. He says I am too weird and they don’t like writers on juries because writers get too involved in the narrative and forget about the justice part.
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“Dress Code: This is a U.S. District Court, and business attire is strongly suggested. Please do not wear tank tops, or shorts. Men must wear shirts with a collar and casual or dress slacks. Ties are not required. Jurors appearing dressed inappropriately will be sent home, without pay, and their jury service will be extended accordingly.”
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Sit around during voir dire taking half an hour to put on your shoes. They’ll realize you’re a writer and cut you loose.
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i was going to say it sounds like fun until i saw this. “This is a U.S. District Court.” OH WOWEEE. like i’m going to go out and buy a tuxedo because these assholes take themselves too seriously. can’t you just pretend you’re a member of some group that hates the person on trial? you know, “i’m a communist and think all bankers ought to be in jail for their crimes against humanity,” or, “i don’t know why a woman would want a job, anyway.”
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I can handle a collared shirt and non-jeans pants. It’s just sort of funny.
The real problem is that federal cases can go long.
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I got one of those. I had to call in to see if I was going to be needed on a particular day. I never was.
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I was kind of sad about not being picked for jury duty, but it seems like it’d be a bit more annoying for you.
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I was foreman on a federal jury once. It was fun except (a) it was in L.A. and I live 95 miles away, (b) it was the week before Christmas, and (c) the case was so pointless I still want to scream just thinking about it. (Actually it was the defense that was pointless.) But really, it was fun except for those things!
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Everybody’s getting jury duty except me! I want jury duty!
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I got a summons too, yesterday. For September 17th. But not federal.
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Jury duty
True story: I was once called up for jury duty in LA–
when I was living in New Mexico. They didn’t want to
let me out of it. They didn’t say “fuck you, come in”, but they just ignored my form where I wrote “[X] Other Reason: “I live 800 miles away now”; and calling them was literally impossible.
I mailed the Kounty Klerk a map of the western half of the United States, and an in-the-margin estimate of how much they would have to pay me in mileage to hop on the 5am Southwest flight out of ABQ, taxi/metrolink, serve, then catch the late-afternoon flight back, etc. The mileage rate they were paying actually would have just barely covered the cost of the flights.
And I never heard from them again. No “sorry”, no “uh, no, please do NOT come in for jury duty.”
~~~
I was called up for Jury Duty here just last week, without any interstate craziness, just here in town.
My psych-MD has a form letter for these things,
what with the brain and the agoraphobia and stuff.
On my current meds regimen, my body really really
wants to get up at noon, no later or sooner. The last time
I got pulled out of
bed at like 8am to do some sudden and urgent
fire-out-putting programming, I ended up screaming into
a pillow until the sedation-level dosage of Klonopin kicked in. Admittedly, that was when I was on a different dosage regiment, but not very different.
I’m sure I could slowly move this whole shebang back about ten minutes a day, and have 9am as my “feel like getting up” time– but it’d take a looong time.
But in the meantime, yes, Dr says No Jury Duty, so Me Happy.
In fact, it was barely my second session with her, like a year ago (once
we were thru with the pharmacological hopscotch segment of the session) I was going
thru my unhappytime checklist of Things That Fucking Scare Me (and
what shall we do about each/all),
and jury duty was really pretty high up on that list, and I
was indescribably relieved when she said it would be
no problem, she excuses people all the time.
Anyway:
Getting on a plane? I’ll supposedly be able to manage that with sedation-level (2mg?) of klonopin in my blood. But being on a jury? No way. At best it’d be me
white-knuckling thru the whole thing, and/or blank-eyed from the drugs. At best.
On the one hand, I’d probably be the best educated person on the jury, and might even know the most about legal(istic) “reasoning”. But on the other hand: everything above, plus: I am actually having this real, no lie, problem with memory. A person with memory trouble isn’t someone who should be on a jury.
And finally: this isn’t LA, this is a TOWN. If I’m
on a jury that finds someone guilty of something (but he’s put on probation or whatever), then wait
ten days and I’ll probably SEE HIM AT THE BUS STOP.
Let’s see if he recognizes me as a juror!
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