Jury Wait

The big wall clock in Room 110 at the Kitsap County courthouse runs so slowly it seems to carefully weigh the evidence before clicking off each second. As the old joke goes, I spent a week there yesterday morning before learning that I would not be part of a district court jury that would hear whatever trial was to begin that day.

The jury summons arrived about 3 weeks ago. Dutifully I filled out a short questionnaire that’s designed to determine if a person is qualified to serve. I skipped the section where you can try to defer or excuse yourself from service, reasoning that while there is no ideal time for jury duty, this week seemed as good as any. I tried to remember when I last received a jury summons and pegged it as during Clinton’s second term.

A call this weekend to the automated call-in system told me that my group was scheduled to report in by 9:15 AM on Monday. Dressed in comfortable clothes, I arrived with a few minutes to spare. I should have paid more attention to the recorded message’s two most important tips: bring a book and get there early before the public parking lots fill up.

The check-in and orientation process is simple and straightforward and useful up to a point. There’s a welcoming pep talk by one of the clerks followed by a short video presentation designed to answer every question the court professionals think you might have. Left out are what it is really like to sit in judgment of another person and how group dynamics play out while a jury works to make a decision. I was curious about both. When I left for the day I had as much first-hand information on those questions as I arrived with: none.

The final orientation step is issuing a jury number to each person in the jury pool. I drew number 23 out of 30 in what I’m assuming was a random-selection process. At that point I figured jury service was a longshot. Typically district courts hear misdemeanor criminal cases or civil actions under $75,000 and get by with 6-person juries. To get to my number would have taken a lot of challenges by the attorneys or, once the nature of the case was known, declarations by people with lower numbers that they couldn’t be impartial.

As a side note, I was in the latter category the last time I had jury duty. The judge dismissed me when I told him I couldn’t be impartial because the defendant in the civil suit we were about to hear was my veterinarian.

By now it was about 10:00 AM and time was dragging. I had already prowled the jury room a few times and drunk a cup of the free but bland coffee provided by the Kitsap County Clerk’s office. I eyed the collection of about 20 jigsaw puzzles stacked on a bookshelf at the back of the room wondering if there was time to complete one of the smaller ones. There was, but no empty table to work on.

My fellow jurors didn’t seem to mind the boredom. Nearly everyone in the room, all white, neatly dressed, and well behaved, had a laptop, smart phone, tablet, Nook, or old-fashioned hard-cover book to occupy their attention. (I really need to shop for a Wi-Fi device.)

Each time the bailiff offered to escort people outside for a smoke break I tagged along for something to do. The only inside scoop I got from her was a novel excuse for not being able to serve on a jury. A few months ago in what was to be a week-long trial, one man wanted to opt out because he had to attend a mid-week birthday party in Bellingham. When asked whose party it was, he allowed that he was the birthday boy. The judge dismissed him.

Someone had left a copy of the Kitsap Sun on a bench outside the jury room. Reading it killed a few more minutes as I learned about another mass shooting (this time in Wisconsin), the latest atrocities in the Syrian civil war, a loss by the Mariners in the Big Apple, and an attempt to promote interest in the GOP convention, which is still about three weeks off.

As the clock slowly approached the noon hour, the big question was whether they would let us go for lunch at 12:00 or the less desirable 12:15 (when the jury clerks take their break).

Sadly 12:00 arrived with no joy. But toughened by the long wait so far, I knew I could last another 15 minutes. Then at about 12:10, the bailiff, who had been telling us all morning that Judge Paja didn’t need us in the courtroom yet, made an announcement.

Essentially the case was over as the defendant had accepted a plea deal and there was no need for a trial. We were free to go! We are also exempt from serving on any type of jury in Kitsap County for a year. Somehow the judge found time that morning, while working to settle the case, to sign individual letters to each juror thanking us for our service.

I will keep mine as a souvenir.