Jury duty

Of the duties of citizenship the only one that I can think of that is compulsory is jury duty. Unlike some libertarians I don’t have any problem with this. In fact I think that actually serving on a jury should be mandatory for anyone seeking to become an officer of the court. I’ve served on two juries and both times it’s been highly educational.

The jury room (as you might expect) doesn’t have Internet connectivity
so I’m taking my notes offline and I’ll actually blog later. I arrived
for jury duty at the Maywood facility at 8:20am. This is actually pretty
early by my standards. The drive from our house to Maywood is typically pretty arduous.
I knew the territory well enough that I took Central Ave. and, consequently,
avoided the worst of the traffic, hassle, and rush. There was an enormous
line to go through the metal detectors—at least 100 people were waiting in line.
It took perhaps twenty to twenty-five minutes to get through the metal detector and
find the jury room. Our introduction to being a juror started promptly at 9:00am with
a brief welcome from the staff. A video introduction began at 9:15, ended at 9:45,
and we’re on break now, watching Oprah. When The View comes on I’ll look for a quiet place. There are some rigors that we just can’t be expected to endure. More later.

One thing I notice about the jury pool that’s here today is how few people aged 20 to 50 there are. I don’t know whether this is indicative of the demographics of the Cook County citizenry or whether people in that age group have pleaded hardship. Being sick or infirm is a hardship. Taking care of a sick or dying person is a hardship. Having young children and being without relatives, friends, or the means to hire care is a hardship. Jury duty being inconvenient is not a hardship.

There’s a room over to the side of the jury room with a few vending machines, some
tables and chairs, and lots of electrical outlets, so I’m camping out here for the duration
to read, write up some stuff I’ll post later, and just avoid the horrific onslaught of
regular daytime television that they’ve got on in the larger jury room.

It’s now 11:45am. I’ve spent the time reading Thomas Barnett’s The Pentagon’s New Map and writing a post about it. I’ll try and have the post up later today. They’ve just announced that we can all go home. We won’t be needed today. So now I’ve done my duty for another year.