A Tale of Traffic and Trials, But Mostly Traffic

Yesterday I performed my civic duty in the justice system for the first time in my life and showed up for jury duty.

An hour late.

Because clearly 50 minutes was not an appropriate length of time to drive from my home to just past downtown. Had I known this at 5:30 yesterday morning, I would have arisen then and begun my quest to reach the courthouse on time. I might have made it there by 8:30 in that case.

After being in my car crawling along the highway for 2 hours at an average of 4 mph it took longer than anticipated to find a parking spot because either the trial of the century was occurring this morning at the county courthouse or approximately 2000 jurors were summoned for today and all of them drove and arrived before me because the parking garage was entirely full. Seriously I was beginning to get dizzy as I wound my way up through eight levels of parking garage and snagged one of the last three spots. (It’s also a good thing my car is tiny as I squeezed between two poorly parked vehicles taking more than their fair share of room.) To my surprise, the view of downtown from the top of the courthouse parking garage is excellent, but I did not bring my camera with me to jury duty, so that picture will have to remain only a memory in my own head.

None of the work I do happens in downtown, and after this morning I will ensure that it never will. Even if they offer me a million dollars to work there, the offer will have to come complete with daily helicopter transport to downtown in order for me to consider the job. (I had a lot of time to consider this while “driving” in the car this morning. Can you call it “driving” when you are just “sitting”?)

While I did use some of my “free” time in the car to listen to the news and pray, I admit most of it was spent worrying about whether I would even make it to the courthouse TODAY and desperately wishing we lived in a smaller town. While I am mostly a city-girl, having lived most of my life in cities, I have further narrowed down the specific city size that best suits me: around 150,000 to 200,000ish is adequate and definitely less than half a million.

I discovered being an hour late for jury duty is actually just on time. When I arrived in the jury holding pen, directions were just being given and within ten minutes numbers began being called to assign pools of jurors to specific courtrooms.

The case in my courtroom was regarding prostitution, which may be why I was not asked to stay on the panel. I have some personal opinions about prostitution, having dealt with current and/or former prostitutes in ministry arenas. I have a heart for women and that is the population I generally serve as I counsel, so I admit going into a situation I might be a bit biased against men who might have been involved in some way with prostitution or really any kind of service or entertainment that degrades or disrespects women. While it really does disgust me, I was honestly not even quite this vocal during questioning, but perhaps the fact that I, along with a few other people, admitted we come in with a bias was being vocal enough. It seems the jurors chosen were the ones who had no comments, nothing to say, and were completely quiet while the lawyers talked. (I guess that’s something to remember if you really ever want to be chosen for a jury.)

Besides the whole prostitution thing, the defendant was being counseled by a young woman whom I assume was a court-appointed “attorney”, but was really a local law student practicing for the summer under the license of another lawyer. And, boy, did she go on and on about nothing and everything without ever asking any real questions to solicit information or answers from any of the jurors. This is her first case in court, and I know she is extremely nervous. I felt for her (and the defendant), but I do not know if I could have given the process the patience and focus needed to stay with her.

Another question one of the prosecuting attorneys asked was whether, for personal, moral or religious reasons, any of us was unable to sit in judgment of another person. I did not make a response, although a few people did – all of whom were, interestingly, pastors or Bible teachers of some sort. The question made me think. I quickly decided that, although I do not have ultimate judgment over anyone, and as I counsel people I consciously work very hard not to make snap judgments, our legal system is an important and necessary institution requiring judgment. After all, I believe in a definite right and wrong and would have no problem participating in the justice system we have in this country.

Maybe next time the case can be about something other than a situation involving the disrespect, degradation or abuse of women and/or children, because those issues hit my heart.

And by “next time” I seriously hope that means “in five to ten years”, and I will either be leaving my house at dark ‘o clock or planning a route that entirely avoids all highways in the area to maintain my sanity.

Or maybe the county could just move the courthouse down the street from our house. I’m flexible.