Thoughts on jury duty
I was called in for jury duty by Hennepin County on Monday, October 15th, 2007. I was notified a few weeks earlier, but I wanted to be "on call" instead of having to be physically present. I did get put into an on-call group, but we got called first thing Monday morning. So much for that.
One annoying thing about the Hennepin County Jury Assembly room is that it's in the basement of the government building. It's actually beneath 6th Street! Consequences of this are (1) terrible cell phone reception, and (2) every so often the whole room shakes when a truck goes overhead. One other irritation is that there's no internet access, unless you have a dialup modem. (Who has a dialup modem any more?) There is a "business" section with plenty of outlets, so you AC vampires can feed, but if you are an infoholic you are about to go cold turkey my friend. If I had to do it again I'd bring a Knoppix CD and play around with that.
In my meager experience, jury duty is boring, mostly involving waiting. Bring your headphones, laptop, a book, and your best patience.
My first impression Monday morning was that the place was packed! I don't know the ins and outs of scheduling for trials, but there were more than 200 jurors called up--they had to bring extra chairs into the assembly room! I spent most of Monday waiting (reading "The Kite Runner" and jawing with the other inmates), but I did get called up in the afternoon. Potential jurors were interviewed, including myself, and at 4:30 the proceedings were put on hold until Tuesday morning. Daniel Mabley was the presiding judge; I didn't note the names of either attorney. The following morning we were informed that the defendant had pled guilty (it was a DUI) , so we all slunk back to the assembly room. I spent the rest of the day finishing my book and finishing some odd tasks I'd brought along.
Wednesday morning I came prepared with a flash drive onto which I'd installed a big chunk of cygwin the night before. I was able to grab one of the computers in the business section and get some scheme-ing done. Not too much though--I was called into another juror pool before lunch. The rest of the afternoon was spent with us being questioned This was another criminal case, involving domestic assault this time. I got Judge Mabley again; the prosecuting attorney was Mike Furnstahl, and I think the defense attorney's name was Schneck. We all had to bare our souls about any domestic abuse we'd experienced, seen, or been affected by. Times 21 interviews--that's a lot of dirty laundry.
Thursday morning the questioning resumed, all the way through about 10:30, when we learned that this defendant had pled guilty too. Probably for the best, since he showed up about 30 minutes late--the jurors were supposed to be there at 9, but here the defendant comes running in at 9:30. So it was back to the dungeon, er, assembly room for me. The rest of the day is a blur; when they released us for the day at 4 they broke the news.
One annoying thing about the Hennepin County Jury Assembly room is that it's in the basement of the government building. It's actually beneath 6th Street! Consequences of this are (1) terrible cell phone reception, and (2) every so often the whole room shakes when a truck goes overhead. One other irritation is that there's no internet access, unless you have a dialup modem. (Who has a dialup modem any more?) There is a "business" section with plenty of outlets, so you AC vampires can feed, but if you are an infoholic you are about to go cold turkey my friend. If I had to do it again I'd bring a Knoppix CD and play around with that.
In my meager experience, jury duty is boring, mostly involving waiting. Bring your headphones, laptop, a book, and your best patience.
My first impression Monday morning was that the place was packed! I don't know the ins and outs of scheduling for trials, but there were more than 200 jurors called up--they had to bring extra chairs into the assembly room! I spent most of Monday waiting (reading "The Kite Runner" and jawing with the other inmates), but I did get called up in the afternoon. Potential jurors were interviewed, including myself, and at 4:30 the proceedings were put on hold until Tuesday morning. Daniel Mabley was the presiding judge; I didn't note the names of either attorney. The following morning we were informed that the defendant had pled guilty (it was a DUI) , so we all slunk back to the assembly room. I spent the rest of the day finishing my book and finishing some odd tasks I'd brought along.
Wednesday morning I came prepared with a flash drive onto which I'd installed a big chunk of cygwin the night before. I was able to grab one of the computers in the business section and get some scheme-ing done. Not too much though--I was called into another juror pool before lunch. The rest of the afternoon was spent with us being questioned This was another criminal case, involving domestic assault this time. I got Judge Mabley again; the prosecuting attorney was Mike Furnstahl, and I think the defense attorney's name was Schneck. We all had to bare our souls about any domestic abuse we'd experienced, seen, or been affected by. Times 21 interviews--that's a lot of dirty laundry.
Thursday morning the questioning resumed, all the way through about 10:30, when we learned that this defendant had pled guilty too. Probably for the best, since he showed up about 30 minutes late--the jurors were supposed to be there at 9, but here the defendant comes running in at 9:30. So it was back to the dungeon, er, assembly room for me. The rest of the day is a blur; when they released us for the day at 4 they broke the news.
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