Jury Duty - part 1

After a quiet Martin Luther King Day holiday on Monday, business resumed Tuesday accompanied by intimidating weather warnings of expected more snow and sleet. And this was the day I had to start my jury duty!?!

After a hiatus of six (6) years, I was summoned again to be a juror last year, but I had to postpone it because of my travel and extensive stay in Albania that took place in the fall. The phone recorded message of the court system instructed prospective jurors to show up early on the first day to allow time for security screening. I also know from experience that commuting from my residence to downtown Manhattan, where most Federal and Court buildings are located, is a long trek requiring lots of time and more than one type of transport.

It was therefore with great apprehension that I walked out of my apartment building when it was still dark, on Tuesday morning, and found that the weather forecast was right on target. It had snowed throughout the night. Another layer of fresh snow covered the old one and the icy spots that formed everywhere due to subzero temperatures that persisted throughout more than 2 weeks. A cold drizzle was also drowning everything on site! What a dreadful sight, and a frightful feeling having to walk very slowly; pausing every few steps to catch a breath against the wind and to figure out where to find a navigable path!!

Very few were the pedestrians venturing out. I soon realized that I would have great difficulty in walking some distance, in boarding buses with obstructed sidewalks, descending and ascending subway's stairs, which, at that hour, remained uncleaned and dangerously icy. Only the vehicular traffic in the middle lanes of the avenues had an edge. While ice, rain and slush covered the sidewalks, all roads' sides were lined with insurmountable piles of previously accumulated stuff and streets intersections were drowning in large pools of water that could not find appropriate drainage.

I quickly decided that my only chance of surviving this mess was to hop a cab, which I was fortunate to find thanks to the early morning hour. I had a good driver, who brought me to destination safe and sound, in less time than expected. I was the first person to arrive in front of the huge court building, but was soon joined by other walk-ins. Unfortunately, we had to wait a bit of time facing rain and wind before we were admitted in the lobby, when the building entrance was opened to the public.

The jury pool room gradually filled up with about 200 individuals, with a rough percentage of 95% young, and 5% mature and seniors. This was on a 3rd floor location, but similar on-goings were also happening on the 11th floor of the same building, and in many other court venues throughout NYC. According to statistics more than 600,000 people serve yearly in this area.

Within an hour all the preliminary instructions, articulated by the clerk in charge and preceded by a short documentary about the history of the judicial system in the U.S., were efficiency taken care of, and everybody settled down waiting to be called according to the needs of each court case.

I only waited half an hour for my name to be summoned. With other 59 individuals I was accompanied by a policeman to another floor in a real court room in front of a woman judge and prosecuting and defense attorneys. Their mere presence indicated that this was a criminal case.

Here again names were picked out of a rotating box, 20 at a time; each juror assigned a seat in the jury box, and interrogated by the judge and the lawyers of both parties. This procedure repeated itself several times, as jurors that were not chosen would be replaced by newly picked names. By 3pm the entire jury of 12 people plus 2 alternates, was chosen and confirmed, and the ones that did not have to get involved in this case, like me, were then returned for recycling to the pool room.

Thus, the first day of Jury Duty came to an end and I was lucky again to find a taxi to return home. The driver, who felt very sure of himself, made me, however, quite nervous with his erratic driving, and distractions. He pushed his way into the maddening traffic and bad road conditions, switching lanes continuously, and getting upset by slower drivers ahead of him. During stops he would read some papers and clean up the front seat next to him. I was really relieved when I finally made it home.

What a day!! What to expect next?