A day in the life of jury duty.

I've been on call for jury duty this week.

My number was just below 1300 out of 3500 for the week. Each day nyjuror.gov was consulted and Friday my number came up. Thankfully this let me get through some rather important days earlier in the week when I was needed at work.

Getting lost once I made it to the local state supreme court early for my 9:30 start. Going through security was similar to the airport but only if the TSA was on Quaaludes and you didn't have to expose stinky socks to the world. Everyone very happy-smiley, nice-nice.

Jurors gathered in a large room with plenty of space to spread out. We were shown a video with 60 Minutes reporters that started with Ye Olde Drowning Test as an example of past judicial systems. The drowning scene went on and on and on. This was followed by patriotic messages about how good we were to fulfill this duty and how it is even more important than voting.

After it finished the TVs all switched over to Fox news channel.

At around 10:30 a subset of the group was assembled and led to a small, cramped room. Three Brill Creamed men with very apparent ties were at the front of the room. Mostly only one spoke. He was the lawyer for the plaintiff. It was a civil suit against a hospital and a doctor with each party represented by their own tie. The claim was that negligence on the part of the defendants contributed to a fall and injury eight years ago of an elderly, now deceased, individual. As he obviously no longer cares, the plaintiff is the dead guy's estate, which I assume means his heirs.

The lawyer for the plaintiff went through a long speech about some aspects of the trial that could be told to us before swearing in. He did this so he could root out jurors to rule out. During much of this he would make hypothetical examples of testimony. Whenever he made a negative statement he would gesture towards the ties for the defendants; positive statements came along with his swinging hands away, presumably towards the dead guy's ghost standing next to him.

After much of this, two hot seats were designated in the front row. They were to be filled with prospective jurors from the group until a suitable pair could be found to round out the jurors selected on a previous day. One seat filled quickly while prospectives drifted through the other seat one by one claiming to be too biased to weigh the facts fairly due to personal connections with some element of the medical community.

It amazes me how easily people admit biases when it gets them out of doing something they would rather not do.

I was called after just a few cycled out. I had listened to the tie for the plaintiff carefully and got to wonder: was some law broken? What is a civil suit all about? So, when I was called, I asked. He gave a long explanation which boils down to: he will try to prove internal hospital rules and behavior were broken and that the defendants were "negligent". I use scare quotes as it seems to be a very subjective accusation. He went on to say that the judge will instruct us as to what relevant law must be followed. I told him, I think I can provide an unbiased assessment but if I feel that any of the laws as given to me by the judge were not fair and just my decision would take into account my own morality. He gave me my walking papers.

Back to the waiting room and more Fox news until lunch which was from 12:30 to 2:00pm. Very fun and nice, if somewhat challenged, staff in the cafeteria.

Shortly after lunch another group was called and included me. This time it was again a civil suit involving a fall. The defendant was Walmart. And again, I was in the hot seat relatively quickly and was asked if I could provide an unbiased assessment if chosen. I explained that while I detest Walmart as a corporation because of their business practices I believed that I could put this aside when rendering a verdict. In honesty, I had admit again, that if I was told to follow a law that I did not think was fair and just that it would influence my decision. Walking papers.

So, some lessons learned:

- If you want to be a juror you must do your duty by completely accepting the law as given to you by the judge. If your morality can not allow you to accept unjust laws you must check it at the door or admit it and be considered unfit.

- They had wifi in the waiting room so I could get some work done.

- The incessant Fox noise on the TVs was very oppressive. Fox news is disgusting. Today it was having sex with the Haiti earthquake disaster and masturbating to messages of how the world doesn't donate as much money to such causes as the US does so everyone else sucks and we rule.

- The court workers babysitting us appear to have a pretty cushy job.

At the end of the day, I was not selected. This left me with mixed feelings. Partly I was elated at not being tied down to a week or two of sitting on the jury. The other part felt a bit dirty. Dirty from forced Fox injection, dirty from being so close to lawyers in their lawsuits. But, mostly I think I felt dirty for not just keeping quiet, getting on a jury, and possibly getting the chance to quietly exercise judgment on a case knowing full well what my moral stance is.