Civic Duty, Part One 1

Once before in these electrons I’ve mentioned being called for jury duty. On that occasion, we assembled in a room and waited. Once all the juries for the day were empaneled, those of us remaining were sent home.

This was a much different experience from that one. It was also much different from what you see on TV courtroom shows. Oh, the TV may have the shape of the model correct, but they dress it up in unrecognizable garments.

I decided to post about my experience because most persons resist jury duty like the plague and because those who have not been called might like to know to expect. Please note that the experience may vary in different jurisdictions.

I was summoned to jury duty at the Virginia Beach City Circuit Court. Potential jurors were directed to a Jury Assembly Room and, upon check-in, were issued name tags displaying their juror numbers (I concluded that the purpose of the juror numbers was to help keep jurors’ names confidential during voir dire–more about that in a follow-up post). There was a large crowd that overflowed into the Juror Orientation room. Many persons brought books, and there were magazines for those who did not.

Some time after 9 a. m., we were directed into the Juror Orientation Room. The lady leading the orientation noted that the reason for such a large crowd was that three felony criminal trials were scheduled for the day, requiring large jury pools. She told us that we were starting a little late because the staff had been trying to rustle up more jurors; 250 had been summoned and approximately 70% of that numbered had showed, some on the list having moved, some being ill, and so on.

She then showed this Virginia Bar Association video summarizing the steps of a trial, the roles of trial participants, and the responsibilities of jurors:

Following that, she gave a slide show re-emphasizing certain of those points, as well as some points of procedure specific to that court (lunch hours, locations of nearby eateries, procedures for leaving for and returning from lunch, and the like). Yes, it was in PowerPoint, but it was better than your average PowerPoint.

After that, she took a few questions from the audience.

About that time the bailiffs from the three trials began to arrive with their lists of members for their jury pools. Potential jurors were called by juror number and requested to line up in the order in which they were called. The bailiffs were extremely courteous and flexible; for example, several persons needed to go the restroom and were freely allowed to do so, the only condition being that they return to their places in line.

Once everyone was ready, we started up the escalators to the courtroom, one bailiff in the lead and the other at the end to assist stragglers. I estimate that my group had somewhere between 30 to 40 persons, but was unable to get an exact count.

Once we were all assembled in line at the door of the court room, we were ushered in and directed to our seats for the voir dire, which will be the topic of a later post.

(Part Two is here.)