Jury Duty

Back in the 1990s, before I retired, I was often summoned to jury duty. I can't remember how many times I was called in, but several times I was selected to actually sit on the panel, and twice I was designated as the jury foreman, including my first trial, a burglary case. I was also the jury foreman in the trial of a dude charged with attempted murder. Those were the two I remember best, and I learned a lot about how the American legal system operates. I also served a six-month term on the grand jury, which was even more educational.

At the time, I enjoyed jury service. It was not only instructive, but it was nice to skip work for two or three days. Not exactly a paid vacation, but similar. I sat on juries so often, my boss started kidding me about it. I always showed up hoping to be selected, and did everything I could think of to prevent dismissal.

After I retired I stopped getting summoned for jury duty, which was okay with me. I'd already learned all I wanted to know about trials and courtroom procedures and no longer had an office that I wanted to avoid for a few days. Then on May 21st, a jury duty summons showed up in the mailbox. The selection process has been modernized over the years, and I replied online to simplify matters. I found myself wishing I had an excuse to avoid the whole thing, but if there's one goddamned thing I'm qualified to do, it's serve on a jury in the state of Texas. I had no sooner finished the online registration process when bang, here comes an e-mail from the district clerk notifying me to report to the courthouse at 9:00 am on Monday, June 28th, for jury service.

So I've had this pain in the ass hanging over me for five weeks. To make matters worse, I've been invited to a retirement reception on June 29th for a woman who was one of my very best workers when I supervised Leon County. I would really love to attend that and see how things are going with people I used to work with. If I have to miss it because of jury duty, I'll be in a very negative state of mind and in no mood to acquit whichever dumb bastard is on trial.