As promised, here are the exploits of my recent call to do my civic responsibility and report for jury duty.
About a month ago I got a summons to appear at the King County Superior Courthouse in Seattle. I'm surprised it took this long to happen, really. The last time I was summoned was over 10 years ago when I lived in a different county.
So... rather than try to get out of it, I scheduled the time off from work.
You never know what kind of case you'll be a part of (if you're even chosen for the jury), but I was hoping it was something interesting that wouldn't drag on for weeks.
As it turns out I was never even called into any of the jury selections, what few there were.
I rode the bus into the city, rather than take my car. I'm glad I did. I didn't have to worry about parking, or traffic or ANY of that crap. I just rode into town and then walked back a couple of blocks to the courthouse.
By my best 'guesstimate', there were probably 200 or so of us in the jury pool. We all showed up and reported in at 8:00 a.m. and then waited to be called. And waited. And waited.
By 11:00 a.m. they still hadn't had any jury requests, as all court cases had been postponed until later in the day. So instead of making us wait another hour until lunch break, they let us go have a 2-1/2 lunch. We had to return by 1:30 p.m., so everybody split out of there to get some fresh air and take advantage of the long break.
While there, I bought some books at Golden Age Collectables and a couple of children's books for my neice at another little bookstore in the market.
Then I browsed around and headed back up towards the courthouse to get some lunch before reporting back in.
(Mmmm! Sushi!)As the day wore on, it became apparent that they weren't going to need all of us for that day, and they let a few of us go home early.... including yours truly.
So not being one to waste a good opportunity to spend time in downtown Seattle, I called up my buddy G-Rod, who works down on the waterfront and asked if he'd like to meet me and bum around town for a while.
What a beautiful, summer day in Seattle! Let me tell you, when the sun comes out, it's a wonderful day to be in the city.
I met a couple of folks who were from Milwaukee. They were just visiting the Emerald City because they'd never been here before, and they'd picked the perfect time to do it.
They said they were having a wonderful time, although they had expected rain. (heh heh! That's what we WANT people to think, so they won't move here!)
I met G and we walked around town so I could take pictures, we stopped at Zanadu Comics and picked up more books, and went to Pioneer Square to maybe take the Seattle Underground Tour. (Which we were too late for that day)
Then we both caught the bus, headed back to his car, and he drove me home where I treated us to dinner at Ixtapa. (I called hotness to join us, and we had a good time)
---------------------------------------------------------
Today was the second day for me to report for jury duty. When summoned, you are required to appear for either 2 days (in which case, if you are not chosen for jury you are then excused) or one trial (which could last several days... or weeks if it's a major court case).
This time I only had to be there by 8:45 a.m., but since I took the same bus in, I got there an hour early and waited to sign in.
Everbody showed up and we all waited again for our names to be called. But it never happened.
We took a break around 10:00 and when we got back, lo and behold!, some of us were called into a jury selection. I wasn't one of them, however. So I sat in the jury room and that was it.
No other court cases came up that required more jurors to be called on.
They let us go, since we'd served our duty, and again I was in town and didn't want to pass up another opportunity to walk around Seattle.
I called up G-Rod again, and this time we bought tickets for the Seattle Underground Tour. First, though, we grabbed a bite to eat at a little Italian restaurant around the corner where we met a nice, older couple who were visiting from Arizona. They also were getting something to eat before taking the tour, so we sat and talked with them for a while.
(from left to right: Leonard, G-Rod, and Alice)The tour was fun, and very informative.
Heck! I'm a native from here, and I didn't know most of the history of Seattle.
We had some very corrupt and deceitful founding fathers, let me tell you!
Nothing exciting to report regarding the jury duty itself, but I had an absolute blast walking around Seattle and taking pictures (which I'll post more of a little later).
I hope you weren't expecting something along the lines of me being on a murder trial or anything. (Believe me, that thought crossed my mind too but I'm glad I wasn't).
0 things people had to say:
Post a Comment