Doing that jury thing

Yesterday I received in my home mail a jury service summons for California state court.

And today I received a questionnaire from Federal court to determine my eligibility for Federal jury service.

Man, oh man.

Now, regarding state court jury service and me: I don't recall if I have written in this blog about it before, but I get summons for it an amazing rate. And I think I've realized why. I'm aware the state courts get names of persons to summon by using both DMV driver license records and voter registration records. My name is slightly different on those records: for the DMV, my middle name is spelled out; not so on my voter registration.

And I have never been put on a state court jury. Every time I'm sent to a court for the voir dire procedure, I'm always dismissed by one side or the other, usually pretty quickly. I can't imagine never being on a state court jury is a factor in how often I get summons, but who knows.

However - I have been on one Federal court jury. This was in the mid-1980s. I was an alternate through the length of the trial, so did not participate in deliberations.

So: regarding the current situation. Please note I have no objection to jury service whatsoever, but, I don't care for the possibility of being summoned to both courts in the same time frame! Looking at the questionnaire from the Federal court, I see nothing that would disqualify me.

But, a valid excuse for getting out of state jury service is that one was a potential juror for at least one day within the past 12 months. I am recalling such may be the case here, but having no memory for dates, will have to check with my employer's Payroll department on Monday.

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.

Court follow-up

In this post, I wrote about going to a local San Diego court for jury duty. I haven't written about what happened due to dithering on and off about whether to post about it, because of issues that came up. I've finally decided to proceed, so those issues will be brought up later in this post

So, I reported to the Hall of Justice building downtown morning of March 13. Almost immediately after the orientation, I was sent to a court as part of a panel of potential jurors. When we were let into the courtroom I was startled to see one of the attorneys was Bruce Henderson. Now, I'd rather not get into discussion of this, but I do not have a good opinion of Bruce Henderson based on his involvement with several highly notable lawsuits over the last several years. It turned out from the judge's introductory remarks that he is now a San Diego assistant city attorney. (The San Diego City Attorney's office prosecutes misdemeanor cases. This case was about a misdemeanor methamphetamine usage case.)

One of the judge's first questions to the jurors panel was if anyone was familiar with either of the attorneys for any reason. I raised my hand and explained myself, and the judge immediately excused me.

So, I trotted back to the jury services office where I was told I would need to wait for possibly being on other panels of jurors. Nothing happened until 11:30, when everyone in the jury lounge was told to take lunch break.

Shortly after the end of the lunch break I was sent with a new panel to a different courtroom. Now, what this case was about is going to take some explaining. For one thing, the judge told us, it was unusual because it was technically a civil case, but would have elements of a criminal case in it. Namely, that the verdict would have to be a unanimous decision (civil cases normally require only a minimum nine person majority to reach a verdict) and the case would have to proved beyond a reasonable doubt for the state's arguments to be accepted, which does not normally apply to civil cases.

What the case involved was the District Attorney petitioning the court to have a person legally labeled a "sexually violent predator." As the case involved a petition, the person whom the DA was filing the petition against was referred to as "the respondent", not "the defendant". We learned this person (who of course was present in court) had already pleaded guilty to three counts of sexually molesting children, but had chosen to fight the DA's petition.

Needless to say this presented some major issues that the judge and the deputy DA and the respondent's attorney needed to discuss with the potential jurors. This made the process of selecting jurors longer than what I assume would be normal. That process of course started that afternoon, and had to be continued March 14. I was called from the panel to be questioned at about 11:15 AM of March 14.

One of the interesting questions from the deputy DA for each person was if that person had any interest in cartoons or cartooning. Well, I used to have an active hobby related to Warner Bros. studio classic cartoons, so I briefly talked about that. He also asked me to explain what I do at my job, so I also briefly talked about that. The respondent's attorney had more generally philosophical questions for me.

After I was questioned, the next turn for using a peremptory challenge belonged to the respondent's attorney. He excused another person, then someone else was called for questioning. After that round of questioning, it was the deputy DA's turn to use a peremptory challenge. After thinking about it for (I think) at least 30 seconds, he excused me.

And the jury selection process continued on as I walked out of the courtroom as I heard another person being called for questioning.

So with that I was released from this jury duty.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to court I go...

...for jury duty, that is.

Morning of March 13, 2006, I will be reporting to the San Diego Hall of Justice for the latest in what has been a long series of calls to jury duty. (I seem to get one about every two or three years.)

My first jury experience was at San Diego's United States District Court, during the 1980's. And that was the only time (so far) that I have actually been on a jury. I was alternate number 3 (of 4) for a trial of four defendants on marijuana smuggling and trafficking charges. Due to the number of defendants, it was a rather long trial and the first two alternates ended up being seated on the jury to replace members who had to drop out (for reasons I now do not recall). When the time came for deliberations to start, the judge told me and alternate 4 that in Federal court alternates do not sit in on deliberations, so we were sent home. I recall feeling rather frustrated about that!

A few years later I got my first notice for jury duty at San Diego County Superior Court, at the court's location in downtown San Diego city. That period and the next few times I received such notices, the jury services office and jury lounge were in the original downtown Central Courthouse, prior to the construction of the Hall of Justice immediately next door. At that time the Central Courthouse had both criminal and civil courts; the jury services office and jury lounge and a majority of the civil courts are now in the Hall of Justice.

I remember getting to the jury lounge and jury services office in the Courthouse was a bit of an adventure the first time I was there because they had somehow been placed between two floors of courtrooms. So, figuring out the needed sequence of stairs that first time was interesting! It's difficult to explain why this configuration was odd without going into long, rambling, detail, so I'll just have to say trust me that it was very odd. The point is that in the rest of the building there was nothing between those two floors of courts but the jury lounge / jury services office.

I was relieved to find with construction of the Hall of Justice the jury lounge for both that building and the Central Courthouse is on the first floor of the Hall of Justice and there is no mystery at all about finding it.

As I noted above, my experience in the United States District court has been the only time I have had any actual jury experience of any sort. During my visits to San Diego Superior Court, each and every time I have been sent with a panel of other prospective jurors to a court for the voir dire procedure, and am selected to actually be questioned for voir dire, I have been the very first person either the prosecutor or the defendant's attorney uses one of their peremptory challenges on, removing me from the panel.

I've never been able to figure out why the attorneys are so quick to remove me! But I decided the last time, a couple years ago, to stop worrying about it. But it will be interesting to see what happens this time.