Thelnie Blogs

Jury Duty

I was an on call juror this past week, and after calling once and being asked to call again, I finally had to go to the court the second time I called. In Santa Ana. Oh! And I actually forgot to call to see if I needed to call in. My mom reminded me and I was already an hour late by the time I called them to see what I should do, and they said that I could just come by 9am. 2 hours after I’m supposed to be there. Great. Oh! And I also forgot to fill out that silly questionaire form they tell you to mail back within 10 days of getting the letter. I didn’t do it. This is a long rant so click if you really want to read it.

I was a little worried I was going to be arrested or something. But then I thought…what are they going to do? Really. So whatever, I got there at 9am and there were tons of people there. I would say 300-400 people. And some of them were waiting in line. So I waited in line to check in, but then I asked the guy in front of me if this was the line to check in. And he was like…”oh….yeah…I think…but..if you’re a student, they were saying something about you will be disqualified if you have class during the day”. Oh really? Nice. So I go to the 2nd window for questions and excuses, and I tell him “I’m a college student and I have class during the day”

Him: “Okay, have a seat”.
Me: …..(what?) You’re going to…call my name?
Him: “yeah, we’ll call you for something”
Me: ….

So then I get back in line because I remember that I didn’t turn in my questionaire. He gave me a form and I filled it out. No biggie. He also checked my badge in. After sitting there, I finally heard the lady on the front stage saying that students who have school are disqualified from this case. So I go up to him again and he’s like “oh yes, you’re disqualified for that specific case, but we’ll call you up for a different one. Take a seat”.

oooookay. Sit for 2 hours. A group is called and sent to a court room. 30 minutes later “Those of you who came back from court #024 please wait and we will reassign you to another case. The court you were assigned to wasn’t ready”. what?? So those people have to be assigned again, wait in line, again. Now we have a 1.5 hour break. More group numbers are called. Some courts aren’t ready, they are dismissed. 2 hour lunch. More group numbers called and dismissed because the courts aren’t ready. 1 hour wait. Everyone else left in the building is dismissed because none of the courts are ready to chose jurors today.

What the heck. I basically wasted…and I don’t mean just wasted like “oh I had to interview with the judge and they didn’t want me”. But completely wasted my time. I didn’t even get to talk to anyone. There was no choosing happening for about 80% of the people there. What did I get from all this? It’s like they just wanted me to spend money in their cafeteria. I did get to watch part of Night at the Museum. Which I’ve already seen. Part of the time I just played Attorney Wright. How fitting. My put my sound up reeeeeeeally loud when I objected. “Objection!!” They asked us to fill out a questionaire. I told them I don’t mind being a citizen and doing my duty, but at least make us useful and be prepared. I also missed 2 lectures today because of all this. What are they going to do? Make my professor repeat his lecture for me privately?

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