I Have Served

We live in the county seat of Yolo and Superior Court is located just down the street. I had postponed jury duty from October, as it was the busiest month on record at work and there was no time to serve.

In the past I've found the process interesting, watching how negotiations behind the scene affect the time in court. Mostly, though, I'm astonished at the waste of time of everyone involved.

Yesterday was my make-up day with a report time of 8:30. It was postponed to 9, and there was a long line and challenge with parking, but I got inside ahead of schedule. The metal detector detected the underwire in my bra.

It is a beautiful old building with marble walls up to the 15 foot ceilings. The ceilings were lathe and plaster with crown mouldings. It looked hand painted tone on tone cream with gold trim. Very ornate.

But otherwise it was a mess. At least 100 people were lining the walls, squeezed hip to hip on the few benches there were, sitting on the stairs and getting up and down, up and down, as people needed to pass. The jury waiting room was already full, and the jury information room informed us that it was already full, and to come back at 10:15.

Back home, a couple of chores, and same hallway. Same people. We were brought down to Department 6 to a courtroom there, and read the jury instructions from a sweet young girl who seemed apologetic for the delay.  In silence we sat there, I read fortunately, until 11:50am when we were told to take lunch and report back at 1:45.

Back home, repeat of earlier, and back at 1:45.  Back to the Dept 6 courtroom and then ushered upstairs at 2:15 to the original jury waiting room to sit in silence until 4:15. Another young woman came in apologetically and said the judge had not instructed them if we were needed, and only he could release us.

We did have a bit of excitement. A bailiff came in and walked us up one flight to a jury room that was at capacity, only to realize that we were not supposed to be there. Back we trudged to the jury waiting room after passing two more groups of about 35 heading either up or down stairs with confused and irritated expressions.

But in the courtroom we were waiting for, I saw the judge had already seated 10 solid jurors in the box and there was a capacity crowd of citizens ready to be interviewed. The judge had the right to keep us there, even carry us over to the next day, but he didn't need an extra hundred people hanging around until 5 to 5. It just seemed inconsiderate.

Today another two hundred will serve, lining the halls, being led up and down stairs staff who apologize too much. What a shame we didn't have a glimpse of the interesting aspects of the court. I left thinking about opening a coffee and sandwich place across the street. That would really clean up.