A whole bunch of nothing...

...Which is pretty much what my latest stint of jury service boiled down to today.

I ended up not being sent to a court, which I think has only happened once before in all the times I've gone to jury service.

The day started interestingly. During orientation, it was announced there would be jury panels for at least two longer-than-normal trials:

• One estimated to run seven days.
• And one estimated to run about six weeks! (Yikes!)

It was then explained under what circumstances potential jurors could request being excused from being included in the panels for one or both of those trials. I decided to request the financial hardship excuse from being on the six-weeks-long trial panel, as my firm does not give full pay for nearly that much time. I wrote that down on my summons form as per instructions and handed in the form with everyone else.

That was followed with what (to best of my recollection of previous jury service days) was a very high number of names of jurors being called to the jury services office and to the front of the jury lounge to speak with assistant jury commissioners about what those persons had written on their summons forms. I could only guess these were all about requests for being excused from the juror panels for the longer than normal trials, so I was somewhat expecting my name to be called for this. But that did not occur. (One really odd note during all this - one person's name was called four separate times to report to the jury services office! No idea if the person finally responded or if the person had left or just what.)

Once all that was resolved, names for the panels to go to courtrooms where the longer-than-normal trials were called. The second of those groups seemed to have a very large number of names called, so I guessed those were for the six-weeks trial.

During the remainder of the day two more panels were sent to courtrooms. After the second of those was gone, I looked around the lounge and had an impression (though I did not try to get a head count) there might have been just enough people left for one more panel. An announcement was made that one court had asked for jurors to be held for a possible panel. But eventually another announcement said that request had been canceled, so all remaining persons in the lounge were released and free to go.

As we left the building for lunch break, I noticed a remote news broadcast van for one of the local television stations was parked at the curb. I checked their web site to see if it has anything about what happened today at the court, and found this, which I am assuming is about the six-weeks trial. If that assumption is correct, it would also explain the high number of names that were called for one of the day's first two panels.

I do not recall if I have indicated this before, but I don't mind jury service at all. So, I was initially somewhat frustrated today about not going to a courtroom at all, but I reminded myself (as explained during orientation) that names on each panel are selected randomly by the jury services computer (once requests to be excused from a panel are finalized, that is), so I really have no reason to complain.