Sunday, November 28, 2004

Civic duty

So tomorrow I have jury duty, which means that I have be in Burbank at 8 a.m. This feels like a hardship for two reasons: I am not a morning person, even a little bit, and I am a bit freeway phobic (the latter reason being, in therapeutic terms, a wee minimization).

Though I know it is wrong of me to so completely not want to serve on a jury, I don't. Serving on a jury, right now, in my work cycle would mean that I spend all day in the Burbank courthouse and then come home to log into the network to do my waged work.

I am comforted my the knowledge that I almost certainly will be eliminated. (While this indicates much of what is wrong with the legal system, it is a comfort in the purely selfish sense that I will not have to work around the clock.) I'm sure that having written a dissertation about the Constitution and being a member of the ACLU for a couple of decades will cross me off someone's list.

5 comments:

Gordon said...

All those methods of getting released from jury duty sound fine, but let me entertain you with my technique.

I live in a small town in the Sierra Nevada, where the defendant pool is relatively small and, as a result of my own bad behavior on occasion, nothing violent, no felonies, I've been up in front of our judge a few times.

The last time I got called for jury duty, the judge asked me the same question he asked everybody, and he was smiling: "Mr. Moore, do you know personally any of the people associated with this case?" He knew my answer, but he had to ask.

My answer was this: "Well, your honor, Mr. Holmes, the D.A. has prosecuted me, Mr. Humphrey, the Public Defender, has defended me, Jack the Bailiff calls me by my first name, you've sent me to jail a couple of times, if I haven't been arrested by the officer it's because he's new on the force, and Sandy, the Court Clerk, called my name first so I could get out of here. I'm glad I still get the ten bucks, though."

The courtroom was cracking up, including the judge as he said, "Thank you for doing your civic duty. You may go."

A little drastic maybe, but that's the way we do it in Mayberry. At one time I damn near had my own jail key, like Otis.

Gordon said...

By thw way, I lived in Burbank for ten years and never got tapped for jury duty. Up here, I still get called about once a year.

Travis (♀) said...

You're on a roll Gordon. That is fucking hilarious.

Gordon said...

And every word is true, too.

Travis (♀) said...

I figured as much. I was always pretty good at flying below the radar during my lawless years (being a girl doesn't hurt). But if you start an outlaw bloggers club, you'll have to let me know.