Monday, I have the distinct privilege of going to jury duty for the first time. I guess I won’t “try” to get out of it since I have nothing else to do with my life. Better than sitting around at home bored as hell.
I know I should feel glad that I live in a society with this type of justice system; where a jury of peers find someone guilty or not guilty; but I just feel so inconvenienced by having to do jury duty. Everyone else feels the same way. I guess if you are a blue-collar worker, and your employer does cover the rest of your pay minus the $5.00 you get paid a day for jury duty, it’s no big deal (which is required by the state, but I find that it only happens with large companies for non-hourly employees). But when you are working on multi-million dollar accounts, and every day you are gone you chance losing them, that’s a big deal.
Here in Texas, work does not preclude you from jury duty. You cannot use work or personal travel as an excuse either. If you don’t show up, you will be fined HUGE amounts of money.
So, I get to go sit with a veritable cornucopia of different types of people on Monday, waiting like a fucking cow to be called to go through voir dire to see if I should sit on a jury to listen to some sad sap who swears he didn’t mean to hit his wife. Can I just tell the lawyers in voir dire that I believe in killing all criminals, regardless of the offense? I mean, this IS Texas.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Robin // May 16, 2008 at 10:51 am
Hey, maybe you’ll get an interesting case. I’d be curious about it but it’s probably not all it’s cracked up to be.
Robins last blog post..You Sneaky Bastards
2 Penelope // May 16, 2008 at 11:57 am
I’ve always wanted to be called for jury duty, does that make me weird? Okay, don’t answer that!
Hey - it could make some good blog fodder - take lots of notes! ;o)
Penelopes last blog post..Bollocks!
3 SwanShadow // May 16, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Every time I get called for jury duty, I hope I’ll get picked for the jury. I would like to have the experience just once.
But they never pick me.
SwanShadows last blog post..Crazy from the heat
4 Winter // May 16, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I always get out of it in CA because I am a single parent and my company does not pay me if I’m on jury duty. Wouldn’t it be interesting if you got a case that was big news and you could write a best seller about it and get totally famous and rich? Okay, the famous part would suck…
Winters last blog post..Psst! I’m Pimpin’ Boobage…
5 Katie // May 16, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I’ve never had to do jury duty, luckily. I can imagine how frustrating and inconvenient it is.
6 dmarks // May 17, 2008 at 5:57 am
I’ve never been chosen, ever. But I do have some curiosity about it, a little like Penelope.
dmarkss last blog post..Christine Baranski Friday - Election 2008
7 laughingattheslut // May 17, 2008 at 8:26 am
Thought you were going to take a break, so I seem to have missed a few posts.
I have never worked for a company that paid for jury duty, and neither has my husband, so just getting called for jury duty usually means getting taken off of the schedule for the week and a financial hardship.
If you don’t want to be picked, remember that you’re all for the death penalty, you either know a lot of victims of crimes or a lot of criminals, your favorite TV show is Star Trek, and your second favorite TV show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And don’t wear anything especially nice that first day. I wouldn’t go so far as to wear shorts and flipflops or something they specifically said not to wear, but they seem less likely to pick you if they don’t know you have a closet full of business attire.
And speaking of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’ve just now heard about Dollhouse. But due to the writer’s strike and other stuff, we won’t be seeing it until January.
laughingatthesluts last blog post..Friday
Come on man. You know you want to say something!