Jury Duty

Today I performed my civic responsibility and did jury duty. Have you ever done jury duty? I guess I've done it five or six times. Sometimes it's actually pretty interesting.

Today, I drove downtown and reported to the Jury Room at about 7:40 a.m. (which means I got up at about 5:30 this morning -- too early for me!). After listening to all the instructions umpteen times -- and not only in English, but also in Spanish and some other languages that I couldn't recognize -- we finally got to the part where we took our oath and then had our numbers called in large groups to report to certain court rooms. My number came up in a group of 65 and we were briefed that we would be heading to the 19th floor of the Criminal Justice Center. Oh joy! So, after our group made the three block walk with our police escort, then we had go through security screening (pretty much just like at the airport -- lots of things to unload or take off) and that meant about a 20-30 minute line. Eventually we all got into the building and up to the 19th floor. Here, our escort got us all lined up in order (I was actually prospective juror #2) and struggled with finding all the stragglers.

As all this was going on, I was amused to see various people walk by. Some well-dressed men in suits; "lawyer" I'm thinking as each of them goes by (actually, sometimes I'm thinking "good lawyer" and sometimes "cheap counsel"). Then there are the more interesting folks. I hate being at all racist, but several people of African-American descent strolled past (with unique walks and clothes) both into our court room and into the one across the hall and each time I'd catch myself thinking "defendent" or "friend/family of defendent". I suppose if we'd been lined up to judge the Enron/Ken Lay trial, then it might not have been the same and I might not have passed judgement on folks walking by so quickly. And a couple of people that passed me just looked so beaten down by life (and I caught myself thinking, "Is that what someone who's suffered abuse or abused drugs looks like?"). And then looking out the window at the end of the hallway, from atop our 19th floor perch, I wondered to myself, "who cares about all the people out there who are abused and despondent and at the end of their rope?" I'm not proud that my mind and heart classified people so quickly. I guess being at that particular location makes it easy to distinguish between the haves and have-nots. And my heart was touched as I realized that there are a whole lot more needy folks going unseen all around, every day. I need to be more like Jesus and less like me, to start actively caring and not so much passively ignoring.

Back to our group getting ready in the hallway. Finally we were all present and accounted for, we'd been allowed one last restroom break, and we'd all turned our cell phones off. It was a quiet moment in that "hall of justice". Then a deputy came out of the courtroom and passed out a paper to each of us: our work excuse. He explained, "I don't know who you all are, but I guess all today's defendents didn't like what they saw as they passed you because all today's cases decided to 'plea' " (meaning none of them would go to trial). "You are all free to go home now, or you can go back and sit in the jury room until 11:45 (it was about 10:30 then)."

A guy by me was really bummed to not get a chance at serving on a jury. Me, I was feeling quite blessed and thankful to get to go. I guess I won't get to find out if my hunches about the people were right. I hope I can have my eyes open more to the people right around me all the time and respond to their needs.