today is brought to you by the letter "J"

as in jury duty. i had it. and thank whatever gods there are that kept me out of it.

got up at the asscrack of dawn to head into cambridge goto the cambridge courthouse. parked at the galleria and hoped like hell that i'd be out before the 5th hour was up. (that's when parking goes from $8.99 to $20, talk about a jump)

so at 7am sharp, i pulled into the garage and parked. a quick stop by dunkin' yielded a large ice coffee. a short walk up the street and i arrived at the courthouse. waited my turn going thru security and waited for them to let us upstairs to the jury pool area (read: cattle pens). and there i sat, listening to Opie and Anthony and waited with my fellow jurors for the next hour until we were herded into a room to watch a 17 minute cinematic masterpiece that instructs us on the duties of a juror. ($5 if interested.)


i had to laugh a few times during it at the wonderful production qualities. the old lawyer with his hands clutching both lapels of his suitcoat. set a top hat on the table next to him and you'd think it was filmed a long time ago.

so, by 9am the video finished, and we were told that we'd have a 50 minute break and we had to be back by 950a. and on the 2nd floor, the cafeteria had food so i wandered down. turns out it was a corp cafe so i laughed (we have one at work, didn't see Stingy S at this one). while looking out the window, i spotted a bus and a few state police cruisers and started to get a little nervous.

when dad was a jury foreman (lucky him), they bused people to the site where the accused did his deed, so knowing that i was afraid that we'd be going for a ride. it wasn't until i was upstairs (and remembered i had a camera on my phone) that i realized that maybe that was the bus used to transport the accused to the courthouse. thankfully that's what it appears to have been the case. i had to chuckle when i first saw the police cruiser that was numbered 666 (you can sorta make it out on the roof - sorry, didn't have time to get a better picture)

i found it humorous as most state police cruisers are crown vics but this one was a dodge charger.

so around 10am, jurors whose number was between 2 & 75 were asked to assemble in the hall. they did a roll call and all told, there were prolly ~60 of us (i was in the 60's). we were then led upstairs to the court room and asked to take a seat. the room was circular with what reminded me of an eyeball with an extra ring on the ceiling, i suppose to provide that faux sense of natural light.

the bailiff then explained a few things to us, swore us in, the judge comes in and he starts informing us of the details we needed to know. at the 2 tables were 3 people, 1 on the left, 2 on the right. the guy on the far right had the look of an overworked underpaid public defender with beady eyes, crappy haircut and big chin. turns out he was the accused.

the judge explained the hearing to us, a convicted sex offender was petitioning for release. he was convicted in 1993, served his 9-12yr sentence and since then has been incarcerated. currently there were 10 jurors seated, and they needed 4 more. so i figured ok, the odds are in my favor. then he told us the expected duration of 2-3 days testimony and a day for deliberation. any hardship problems? a few raised their hands. ok, so far so good. being out of work for more than a day wasn't thrilling, but if need be, ok, i'd live with it.

then the question was raised as to whether people would be able to deliberate objectively. then i started getting a little nervous as i didn't raise my hand and 2/3 of the people seemed to. (don't blame them, but i realized that i wouldn't be able to come up with a convincing reason, tho i now realize that i do have one.) so we still needed 4 jurors, and my number was high enuff that i stood a chance of not being picked.

then the players were introduced and i realized that i was sitting not 15 feet from a convicted sex offender. (i won't list his name as i'd rather not have someone plug his name and have my blog pop up). turns out he was the beady eyed, crappy haircut big chin guy. i knew something was slimey, but i thought it was lawyer slime, not convicted sex offender slime.

a few final formalities and jurors were brought into the judge's chamber, ~10 at a time. after the 2nd batch of people were brought in, the bailiff gave us 1 of the 2 things that all jurors want to hear.

1) if you are excused, you can go home.

because MA has this one jury one trial thing, if you aren't selected to sit on a case, you are not excused. you have to return to the jury pool and wait in case you are needed for another trial. you don't go home. unless told otherwise.

a few more groups go in and then the last group walks in, and walks back out a few seconds later and the bailiff announcses the 2nd thing that all jurors want to hear.

2) you can go home, your service is complete

the bailiff then informed us that we'll get a form in the mail 8-10 days from now stating that we served. he also suggested making a copy for future reference in case we get called back as that's our get out of service (for a period of time, minimum of a year). if we can't produce documentation that we served, we'd have to serve again. so i'll keep it in a safe place.

so, just past 11am, i headed out of the courthouse and headed back to my car, pleased that i'd be out before that $8.99 turned into $20.

and the best part, i didn't get stuck in traffic on my way home.