Well, if you were expecting a story of Perry Mason proportions where the jury listens raptly as a criminal confesses on the stand, errrr, you might want to rent a Perry Mason DVD. I have no such stories.

I went down on Tuesday to the courthouse (Monday was Columbus Day and hence a day off for me) The lines were long and all of the roughly 150 jurors was given a presentation on what it is to be a juror. I bristled immediately when they said, “This is the most important thing you’ll ever do for your community.” I sat on my hands to keep from pointing out that the 80 students a year I teach math to might think otherwise. Then followed the waiting. They called 15 people up and let them go to lunch. At first I was annoyed, until I realized that those people would likely have to come back from lunch and hopefully we wouldn’t. We were finally let go at 1pm, hungry and ready to leave.

Thursday I went down again. I was there from 8:30-noon; I never left the jury waiting area. I read books (I’m currently reading Bill Pronzini’s latest with Michael Kortya’s up next) I did some work. I graded tests. They called 15 people out of the 75 there today and the rest still sat. And then at noon, I got to come home again. No court time on Fridays, because apparently no legal cases outside of Law and Order start on Fridays.

I have another week of this to go, which will be made more difficult because of teaching next week. I’ll let you know what happens, but for the most part, it’s been a very dull experience for me.