Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Court and Spark

So, it turns out Covid isn't all bad. 

I mean, there is no 2020 Coldplay tour!  School shootings are WAY down.  There is always a chance #moscowmitch will catch the disease and die!

.....and no jury duty. 

I got a summons to the county court......three weeks ago. 

First off - I've only been 'summoned' once before - pushing 12 years ago. It was the kind you called at 16:30 the day before to see if they needed you.  They didn't.  Five days in row they didn't need me. It was just like my dating life 12 years before that. 

This time was to be the same thing.  

My first thought was: who gets jury duty right before Thanksgiving?  My second thought was: they're having actual juries in times of Covid? 

I knew at our supposed peak, they stopped them. But then they reinstated them - though I don't know if that was for city, county or federal. 

While being on a good case would be entirely a blog series, it's weird time of year, as I'm finishing my budget and really in the midst of heavy recruiting. And more importantly - I just didn't want to, civic duty or not. 

I had a plan, of course.  Two, in fact. 

1. Go. And wear my Black Lives Matter mask. There was a 100% chance they wouldn't let me on any jury. Ever. Of course, that in itself is using the minority population for white privilege.  So, I scratched that idea. 

2.  Call the number on the summons and ask for a 90 day postponement. 

That seemed more realistic, as it had the instructions right there. On the outside of the envelope.  It's like they were telling me to call.  So I did. 

I didn't even have to given an explanation. 

Not only that, they go:  you know there aren't jury trials at least until June. Do you really want to postpone as you are now ineligible. 

To be honest, I didn't even know what she meant by the past part, so I quickly answered not to put me in the postponement category. So now I'm "ineligible". 

I'm not sure justice will prevail without me. But maybe, just maybe, it will. 



Song by: Joni Mitchell

4 comments:

anne marie in philly said...

"court and spark" - HUGE album during my soph year at college. we played it to death, along with "tapestry".

James Dwight Williamson said...

I’ve never been, I could easily vote to convict on any offense . I am soured on the whole bureaucratic bullshit of today. I really don’t want to do anything except rid the world of this Blotus, and then, maybe my desire for civic engagement will return!

Travel said...

Jury service can be fun, I was a little surprised how fast my fellow jurors voted to convict.

uptonking said...

I served for a week a few years ago. Seated on a four day trial. Fascinating. That jury room was a mess - everybody wanted to personalize the outcome. I wrote the law we were enforcing on a board and went word for word through it, explaining that this was all we had to work with... not their feelings. Not their experiences. Not their opinions. The law - and did what we heard in the courtroom meet this standard. We found the man guilty. But that was intense and I'd rather not do that again. Glad you don't have to go through that... I can't imagine doing that with a mask on all day. In MN there is currently a county with a bit of an issue. The historic courthouse is too small to social distance... so they want to hold the trial in a church! Well, the public defender is having a cow - and I don't blame her. Can you imagine? Take care!