Post by shawnOn Thu, 12 Sep 2024 15:34:49 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
Post by Adam H. KermanI'm sitting here at Cook County Criminal Court, 26th and California,
Chicago. This is my second summons for jury duty. Last time, they
called us in, made us sit all day long even though they knew no jurors
were being empanelled that day.
Hmm, I've never seen that. Every time I had to go in they always
pulled in some people for juries. Though last time I had to go in a
couple of days and did get picked for a jury. Though it never went to
trial because the guy charged ending up having a medical issue that
prevented him from going on trial.
When I was in law school in Houston, I had one summer when I wasn't working
for a firm or anything, so I decided to at least get some free credits and
an easy A to bolster my GPA by taking "Courtroom Observation". You had to
sit and watch a significant trial from start to finish and describe any
evidentiary or procedural issues that came up and how they were resolved
and critique the performances of the attorneys.
Well, it was a Friday and I was packing up my notes and getting ready to
leave for the weekend when a deputy sheriff walked into the otherwise empty
courtroom, pointed at me, and ordered me to come with him. He took me into
another courtroom and told me to sit down and wait. I had no clue what was
going on. Little by little, other deputies walked in with other random
people who looked as confused as I was. Eventually there were about 30
of us in the room and the judge for that court came out and explained that
they had a case that for legal reasons had to go to trial immediately and
the official jury pools downstairs had already been released for the
weekend, so he was exercising his authority under Texas law to assemble
a pickup-jury. The law allows a judge to direct the sheriff to go out
into the community and 'arrest' people to serve on a jury.
The lawyers for both sides did a quick void dire-- none of the standard
forms to fill out or deep dives into our backgrounds, just a few basic
questions-- and within a half hour had 12 jurors and two alternates ready
to go, of which I was one.
The judge apologized to us for ruining our Friday night and allowed us to
use the courtroom phones to notify whoever we needed to that it would be
a late night for us. One guy even had to have the judge personally take
the phone and talk to his angry wife who wouldn't believe his story.
The trial lasted about six hours and I have no idea what reason the
defendant had for agreeing to the process considering he had a jury
sitting in judgment of him that were pissed off from the get-go.
It was an aggravated rape case and we found the guy guilty.