In my long life, I’ve taken citizenship seriously, serving in the military, voting in every election, paying my taxes, being elected to two different neighborhood H.O.A. Boards of Directors, and not committing any crimes. The only thing left on my citizenship Bucket List is serving on a jury.
Oila, this month I got a jury summons!
Technically, since I’m over 70 years old, I could have declined. And, the fact that my second oldest son Ron was a Lieutenant in the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department would probably make me unacceptable to any defense attorney. Not good odds to actually being seated on a jury but, what the Hell, I thought I’d give it a chance.
The court system in Las Vegas is pretty up-to-date and asks potential jurors to call (or use the Web) the night before to make sure that one’s services will be necessary the next day (Monday, February 13th). I checked and, “Yes!”, they needed me to show up.
So, I made the 70-mile drive down to downtown Las Vegas.
There is no available parking anywhere near the courthouse, so the geniuses have provided reimbursable pay parking at a lot up near Fremont Street. Unfortunately, accessing that parking lot requires local knowledge, as the downtown area is infested with one-way streets. I couldn’t quite figure out how to negotiate that labyrinth (in fact, I couldn’t find the entry), and it was about ten minutes to my reporting time. So, I found another parking structure, about 8 blocks from the courthouse. I was a bit annoyed at this point and was a bit testy with the parking lot attendant (a middle-aged Black woman who looked and acted like a drill sergeant) who give me my stub.
I headed off toward the courthouse, having to cover the eight blocks in fairly quick time. If you are familiar with downtown Las Vegas, you will know that I had to shuffle along through some pretty seedy areas, with drunks lying on the sidewalk, bums trying to bum some money, prostitutes wandering about, and busted gamblers grousing about their luck.
I was so happy to get to the courthouse a few minutes early. Then, I had to go through a metal detector after putting my personal property in a basket. Of course, the alarm went off when my two artificial hips passed the sensor. After convincing the officer that I wasn’t bringing in a bomb, I was accosted by another officer who pointed to my car key fob and said, “You can’t bring that knife in here!” On my keychain was a Victorinox multi-tool, with a tiny scissors, a tiny nail file, and a 1” blade… something that couldn’t bring down a crippled dog. “Nope”, she said, “you will have to return the weapon to your car!”
Yeah, I’m going to walk back 8 blocks thru the gauntlet of street people and then return another 8 blocks to the courthouse. Hell no, I would probably collect a shiv from some loser for my troubles. I told the officer, “No way!”, broke the offending Bowie knife off of the key ring and threw it at the cop. “You people asked me to come here; I’m not a criminal and I’m not here to break someone out of jail!”, I yelled. “Whatever”” she said.
I flew up to the third floor, getting to the Jury department at 11:59 a.m., one minute early, only to find a line of about a dozen folks waiting to be processed. “I’m good”, I thought, beginning to anticipate sitting on a jury for the first time, doing my civic duty.
And, then, a fellow came out of a door and announced, “We won’t be needing you folks today; we’ve got all the jurors that we need!”
When the guy collected my Juror badge, I told him that I had driven 70 miles because the Court had told me, last night, that they needed me. “Sorry”, he said. I responded by saying that I will ignore any future jury summonses and if the Court needs me they will have to come to my house and drag me out of it.
And, so , I trudged back through the eight-block gauntlet, anticipating being jumped at any moment.
When I got to the parking structure, I noticed that my parking lot ticket was no longer in my shirt pocket. “WTF!”, I cursed, knowing that I would now have to face the wrath of the Equalizer. “I was just here 15 minutes ago; you remember me, right?”, I said, sheepishly. She recognized me, but said, “Without your stub, you will have to pay the Lost Ticket charge… thirty bucks.”
Really! What a perfect ending to a beautiful Jury Service!
The Black lady was actually nice and God-blessed me after I paid up. Just doing her job. I’m sure plenty of shysters have tried the lost ticket trick on her and she’s wiser now. Can’t blame her.
I mentioned to her that I was here for jury duty and those criminals were damned lucky that I wasn’t chosen to actually serve because the entire morning had put me in a foul mood. She said, “I don’t want nothin’ do do with those courts.” I don’t blame her.
As I drove the hour and one-half back to Mesquite, I pondered jury service and my experience with the system. How many jurors, I wondered, sat down to hear a case while annoyed or angry about having to serve, negotiating the downtown jungle, pissed about some domestic or pressing financial matter, etc.? Would their minds really focus on the task before them or would they be daydreaming about solving their own problems while the attorneys rambled on?
It makes you wonder… if justice is ever fairly served.