Tuesday, June 26 was day two of my federal jury duty. This is my very
belated report on what happened.
I think the reason they limit it to two days or one trial is that
after the second day, you realize that even though they tell you to be
there by 8:30, you don’t really need to be there until 9. They took
attendance at 9 to make sure nobody decided to play hooky, and then we
sat around until around 11 before I got selected for another juror
panel.
This time I had a much lower number, 26. Unlike Monday, when the
judge had each potential juror come up and discuss her or her issues
in private with the attorneys, this time the judge did most of the
voir dire by having people say their issues out loud. The 4th of July
holiday was the following week, and nearly half the panel had vacation
plans. I, however, did not, since I’d decided to hold off on any vacation
plans until after I was done with jury duty. By the time we broke for
lunch I was sure I was going to end up on the jury.
Before we left, the judge said that he was going to talk to the
attorneys over lunch to see if they could speed up the jury selection
process. When I got back from lunch this was apparently still going
on. The doors to the courtroom were closed, and all the jurors were
waiting out in the hallway.
About 20 minutes later the doors opened and a number of people left
the courtroom and walked past us to go to the elevators. Shortly
afterwards we were told we could enter the courtroom. We sat there
for about 45 minutes, and finally the judge entered. He apologized
for making us sit around so long, but he had good news: the defendant
had accepted a plea deal. It turned out they’d been in negotiations
for months, and he could have gotten a much better deal if he’d
accepted the original offer. As it is, he’s facing up to 54 months in
prison. When the judge sent us back to the jury room, I hadn’t seen
so many happy people since the Phillies won the World Series back in
2008.
By the time we got back, it was already late in the day, and within a
short time we were excused for the day. Since I didn’t get picked for
a trial, my federal jury duty was over. When I got home, I found a
report on the case online.
The following day I was supposed to report to Media for Delaware
County jury duty. But when I called them up, I learned that they
didn’t need any jurors that day, so I was excused. My perfect record
of never serving on a jury remains intact!