It had to be now! After I was done with the conference and started to feel like a human, after I went to New York and was diverted to Milwaukee, after all of that, I received a jury duty summons! And then it went according to the worst-case scenario: I called a day before with the hope that I wouldn’t need to report, and I learned that I had to show up at the court (and it was Maywood!!! I couldn’t believe it was in Cook County!). I went to the court on Monday (almost two hours one way), sat there for an hour and a half, and ended up in a group that was asked to come upstairs to a courtroom. The judge briefly explained the case to us, and then we were divided into three groups. Each group was questioned by the judge, the prosecution, and the defendant’s attorneys. After all that, I was among the selected fourteen (with two alternates). Then came the worst part: because we started so late, we could not finish in one day, even though the case was not very complicated. We were ordered to come back on Tuesday! Fortunately, the hearing was scheduled for 11:30, so I attended the office first and participated in two meetings. And then, since it was already past rush hour, I took Uber to the court, which ended up being 20 minutes instead of almost an hour.
Despite my laments about wasted time, I am glad I served. It was a very interesting experience, and I learned a lot about how our judicial system functions. I had no idea how the judge’s selection process works, so it was very interesting to observe what questions were asked by each of the parties.
The most interesting, however, was to observe how much the process was similar to what they show in court dramas! During the first day of hearings, I frequently caught myself thinking: that must be a show! It can’t be a reality! But it was!
The way attorneys delivered their remarks, intonating to influence people’s feelings, the row of witnesses looking stereotypical beyond reason, and the intrigue of the sequence of events that started to unfold.
We reached the unanimous verdict of “not guilty” in the first ten minutes, and to be honest, we didn’t even have to do this deliberation – the first vote proved that we had one opinion. We still talked a bit, mostly ensuring we reached this conclusion based on the same facts. When, in ten minutes, we knocked at the door and said that we had reached the verdict, the deputy sheriff was alarmed and almost creamed that she needed time to gather people back into the courtroom. However, we acted exactly as instructed, there was not enough evidence, and the prosecutors failed to prove anything.
Possibly more to come 🙂
Hettie's Reflections 