Jury Duty

After how many years of ignoring jury summons, I gave in and went yesterday. Since the notice I got says ‘Must Serve’, I think it’s time to go before some cop knocks on my door and arrests me! I got there exactly 8:30 in the morning which I was worried I was going to be late but I was on the dot. I thought I would get penalized if I’m late but some people showed up an hour late and they were fine. Oh well! At around 10am they called my name for interview with the attorneys. We were about 20 in the room and the attorneys need to 6 qualified jurors. It was a case about an individual that got injured at the job against two big companies. It has to be decided how much money the individual should be awarded. At about 12:30 most of the people were eliminated because of various reasons like they can’t speak/understand english or they have plans on going on vacation in the next couple of weeks. There was also another one that he couldn’t take off more than 3 days because he’s the breadwinner of the family. Since there were only 3 of us left, they couldn’t continue until there’s at least 6 people in the room to be questioned. So they decided to let us have our lunch at around quarter to 1 and come back at 2. At 2 pm, they had sent more people in the room. At around 4 pm, they had questioned 6 people including me about the case and being fair. We thought they already picked the 6 juror for the case. The attorneys went outside for their final decision. After a minute or two, all six of us were asked to go outside the room for the decision. They said they only picked one and I was not the one! YES!! Five of us came back down at the grand jury room and wait until they called our names again for another case. After 10-20 minutes, the guy announced that he’s handing out letters that served as a receipt that we attended and we won’t have to attend for 6 years. YEHEY!!!

I was very relieved and happy that I’m done and over with this jury thing. Not really done but I don’t have to worry about for about 6 years.