I showed up at 8:00 am to the Palm Beach County Courthouse along with around 100 or more other jurors.
I made it through security with pepper spray in my purse. I totally forgot it was in there until I was searching for my book later on. Whoops.
They shuffled us in to a room where we stood in line waiting to turn in our paperwork. Then, we all sat and waited. They started calling names and to my surprise, my name was called in the first group of around 20.
So we all shuffled out together again and waited in another room for the roll to be called. Then we went to Courtroom 11E. We had a seating arrangement as we all sat in 4 rows of pews. Our judge was very friendly and it was fun to sit and listen to him as he explained why being a juror is so important to our judicial system. Everyone seemed a little annoyed with the whole process, but I was excited to be a part of the American justice system. I’m a dork.
Our first case was thrown out because the prosecutor’s main witness failed to show up. We all thought we were going home. But instead we had to wait outside the courtroom and wait to see if there was another case available. I made a couple of friends while I was waiting.
First there was motorcycle man. He was sprawled out across the floor in front of me with his baseball cap over his head and only his scruffy beard peaking out. I guess he couldn’t sleep because it wasn’t long before he was talking to me how he had formulated a plan to get out of duty. He let me know that he never became a registered voter because he thought that meant he didn’t ever have to go to jury duty. But since he got called despite his first brilliant plan, he was just going to answer every question contrary to what he thought a juror should say. I could tell he was real proud to be an American.
Then there was the woman who was the wife of a prosecutor. Her husband actually passed by while we were waiting outside. She knew all the ins and outs of the system and she also had a plan to get out of duty.
Then there was the sweet mom of two who sat beside me. We just made observations to one another as different people walked by. It’s so fun to experience all of the diversity found in a county courthouse.
Then our deputy called us all back in the courtroom, and they introduced the new case. It was a criminal case against a young guy with a DUI charge, and it was going to be a one day trial. A DUI case always seems a little useless to me. If a cop pulls you over and you’re over the limit, then you’re guilty.
And that was one of the reasons I got to leave early.
The judge goes through a series of questions, such as: can you presume this man innocent before being proven guilty? is there anything in your past that would prevent you from judging this case fairly? do you have any prejudices that might hinder you from judging appropriately?
I felt like I could assume him innocent before proven guilty. And I didn’t have any immediate prejudices against the guy. But I didn’t feel that I could honestly answer that nothing would hinder me from judging fairly, especially with the fact that my cousin was killed by a drunk driver.
It would be hard to put those feelings aside.
So I raised my hand.
Driving under the influence is one of the most careless and selfish crimes, and when someone else’s life is put in danger because of someone else’s stupidity, I don’t think I have a whole lot of room in me to judge that person fairly.
All of us who raised our hand for one reason or another were called out of the courtroom, including motorcycle man and prosecutor’s wife. I guess their plans worked. We thought we were home free. But no… we had to back to the first room and sit and wait.
But I will give props to the Palm Beach County courthouse for putting a great movie on to watch as we waited again. We got to watch The Guardian for a while, and I’m a little sad I didn’t get to see the ending.
My name was called again. Along with motorcyle man and prosecutor’s wife. They told us our names were drawn randomly by lottery and we could go home! It was pretty exciting.
We hopped back on the trolley and went back to our cars. I was happy I got to experience the jury system and felt a little more proud to be an American.
As I was pulling out onto Okeechobee Blvd, motorcyle man sped up in front of me and popped a long wheelie. I guess he wanted to let me know how happy he was to be out of there.
