Two weeks ago on Thursday, I was called up for jury duty at the Dailey Center. I’m no stranger to being approached by a judicial system reluctant to actually use me for anything once I turned up. The first time I was called for jury service, I was instructed to call a number and they would tell me if I was to report. They didn’t want me. The second time, I was called over to the courthouse in Maywood. I didn’t like the place. It was so filthy; there was even dirt inside the gumball machine. I sat in the waiting room being stared at because I had thought it appropriate to wear a suit. No one else did. I waited there all day and then was sent home because they didn’t need me. The third time, I ended up at the Dailey Center, a much nicer place. But they didn’t want me, either. This was my fourth attempt. I was called back to the Dailey Center. This time, people asked me questions. This is what happened:
It was nearly lunchtime and my group of about thirty was taken by elevator to the courtroom where the trial would be held. There were lawyers from both sides sitting at two tables facing the jury box. There were eleven seats in the jury box, and I knew from television that the attorneys had the right to remove a certain number of jurors. The rest of the potential jurors were there to replace the jurors that the attorneys wanted to remove. The deputy read eleven names of people to sit first in the jury box. The third name called was mine.
It was to be a civil trial, we were told, probably not lasting more than two days. Two cars had collided. The driver of one, a man, claimed whiplash. The lawyer for the other driver, a woman, claimed the male driver had punched her after the crash. They were both suing for damages. Interestingly, the male driver had two sets of lawyers, one to sue the other driver and the other to protect him from her suit.
The judge asked the first questions. He looked at the information sheet I had filled out and asked “Does Roosevelt University have a legal program?” I said “It has a legal assistant’s program.” He asked “Does that give you a special knowledge of the law?” I said “no,” thinking that explaining the use of Lexis-Nexis does not constitute a special knowledge.
The woman’s attorney snorted.
Then his turn came to ask the jury questions, and he chose not to ask me anything. I thought “He’s going to challenge me.”
And he did. The judge and attorneys retired to another room for a few minutes, and upon their return, they excused half the jury, including me.
So that’s what happened. The judge and the lawyers believed a librarian is too wise in the ways of the law to be allowed to sit on a jury.
-Michael Gabriel