Done With Jury Duty

Well, for the last two days, I've been bored off my ass in the Jury Assembly room of the Kent Regional Justice Center.

I woke up bright and early Monday morning and got down to Kent by about 7:20am (I had no clue how long it was going to take to drive 30 miles south during commute times, so I left early). I hung out for a few minutes, then went through security and got up to the Jury Assembly room. Think of the Jury Assembly as an airport terminal: rows of seats, and a handful of tables. At first I packed myself into the rows of chairs because I was not sure of the layout of the room.



One of the Judges came down and gave a little speech and made a few jokes about Jury Duty. He talked about the three types of Jurors: Type 1, those who wanted to be there and were interested in the process. Type 2, those who had been there before and knew what they were in for. Type 3, those who wanted out as fast as possible and were clawing at the walls. As much as you hear people make the comments about the Type 3 person "LOL you got Jury Duty! LOL", I was leaning towards the Type 1 side... I was interested in what the whole process was about. I had made sure that I got most of my work out of the way last week, I got a vehicle software release out, and I tied up as many loose ends as possible. After the judge took off, they played a 15 minute video (with terrible acting) about the court process.

After the first half hour, I was already getting uncomfortable and went to get a drink and hit the pisser. Of course my seat was gone when I got back, so I wandered around the Assembly. They has a coffee vendo, a coke vendo, and a snack vendo, as well as a fridge and microwave. So, they were not really "uncomfortable". But in this wandering around I saw the OTHER half of the room which had tables set up with power strips on the tables. These spots were almost all taken up, but I nabbed one of them for myself. King County is smart enough to know that people need connectivity, so of course there was WiFi available.

The wait was short to the first group that got called. They gave numbers to 56 people for a case. Soon after that, they added 30 people to a case that did not have enough to make a jury. Within the next hour those two groups left and headed out to their courtrooms. They announced that they had two more cases pending, and that we should just hold tight.

So the wait began.

I emailed work a bit, I surfed a lot, and generally felt my brain go numb. By 11:30pm they said that the other two cases would not be ready for jury selection by noon, so they gave us lunch: "Be back by 1:30pm". Great! Two-hour lunch! I'm used to 30-45 minute lunches... what the hell was I going to do for two hours?

I had spied a Chipotle across the way, so I wandered over to "Kent Station", which is a pretty nice little strip mall, reminded me of Redmond Town Center, just smaller. Of course when I got over there, the Chipotle had a sign on the door that said something to the effect: "Many of our workers chose to attend the immigrant rallies today, so we did not have enough people to open. Come enjoy Chipotle another time!" Denied. I had spied an Arby's earlier, so I headed down to get some roast beast.

The whole time I was walking around the area, I thought that the whole stereotype of "Kent" was a bit overblown. There was quite an economic surge, the Kent Station area is really nice. The area is actually quite pretty (except for the construction, but you could tell that was all just more economic growth).

Then I "Crossed the Tracks".

It was the stereotype of the wrong side of the tracks. I was instantly reminded of Spokane Valley... way out Sprague. Wide busy roads, lots of crap low-density commercial. Trashy people... ugh. Luckily the immigrants at Arby's were willing to take my money. So I got my Giants, and headed back over into the "nice" area.


Once I got back after wandering around for two hours, I got my little nest set up at the table with my computer and WiFi. They called the other juries out to their cases, and told the rest of us that the other two cases were still pending. So we waited. Just before 3:00pm one other person at the table went up to the office and asked if they were going to even call us today (courts recess at 4pm, so not much sense in pulling us up). She came back with the news that they were letting us out at 3:oopm. Time came, they let us go, and told us to be back at 8:45am the next morning.


Today it was nice to sleep in an extra 20 minutes (I can't sleep in on weekdays... so I just got up). I actually ate breakfast, and wandered out of the house on time. I was there by 8:30am, and got my nest set up and started the surfing (I "discovered" digg.com for the first time, and got sucked into that, it's bumped slashdot.org from the top of my tech-site list).

Just after 9:00am, they started pulling the other assigned juries out, and told the remainder that they still had the other two cases pending. Just as the day before, I zoned and surfed until 11:00am. But then they made an announcement, one group was ready for jurors, and not only that, I got #4! They had assigned 36 numbers for Judge Jay White's court, and told us to chill out until they were ready for us. Well, just past 11:30am, we got the same message as the day before "Too close to lunch to start, take off, be back by 1:20pm sharp!"


I didn't even bother trying to waste time on lunch today. I hit Chipotle, got my Barbacoa and Corn, ate, then went back to the Jury Assembly. There's not much to see in Kent, and once you've seen it, the Jury Assembly is just about as interesting.

Of course 1:20pm came and went. But about 1:45pm they called us upstairs to line up. They got us all in order and explained how we were going to find our seats. Since I was #4, I was going to get a front-row seat in the Jury bin, yay! So, we waited. The bailiff went in and out, and kept saying "just a few minutes!". Wait. By 2:15pm she came back out and said "We're sending you back downstairs to be more comfortable. Back to the Jury Assembly nest.

By 3:00pm, they said that the last case pending would not be taking jurors today, so they released everyone else (to cheers and clapping). They told those of us in Judge White's group to stick around a bit longer.

At 4:20pm, Judge White himself made an appearance! He came down to thank us for coming, and told us what was going on. It seems that yesterday and this morning they had been doing quite a bit of pre-trial for a criminal case of phone harassment. He basically said what we were told, and that they were ready for us, but it was too close to lunch. Then they put us together, and once they were back in session after lunch, the defendant stood up and wished to change his plea to guilty. That's when they sent us back downstairs. The judge wanted to make sure that the defendant knew that he was giving up his rights to defend himself against those charges. Oh, and did I mention he did not speak English? This whole process was taking place bilingually though a translator. So, after a few hours of making damn sure that the defendant was ready to give up his rights to a trial, his plea was changed to guilty, and case was recessed until sentencing on Friday (but they don't use juries for those).

So, a few people thanked him for coming down and explaining the whole situation, and then they released us. I was going to stick around and talk to the Judge, but I would have to wait in line behind a bunch of old men doing that exact thing (does that make me an old man?).

So, I hit Jamba Juice, and made the drive back up through wonderful 405 traffic.


Until the next time! Maybe I'll get to see a case then...