The Politics Meister

Posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 2:39 pm

Last Tuesday I spent my day downtown at the Mitchell courthouse. I was supposed to arrive for jury duty at 8:15 AM. I walked into the Saint Paul street entrance exactly at 8:15 and there was a line leading up to the metal detector. Sign up sheets were being passed around. I brought my own pen and this came in handy. The sign up sheet asked the basic questions and also asked a lot of question about crimes you may have committed in the past. This sheet was the one of the last ways a person could get out of serving on a jury. I did not want to get out of serving. I know that Baltimore needs good jurors and I wanted to be a part of the process. Most people in attendance did not seem happy about being there. I overheard quite a few people trying to think of ways to “escape”.

I guess I know a lot of people because I knew five other people who were called to jury duty on Tuesday. I thought there would be a lot of destitute looking people in attendance, but there actually was a broad cross section of Baltimore in the jury pool that day. I saw Whites, Blacks, Jews (some orthodox), Asians, poor, wealthy, smart, and ignorant.

After we made it through the metal detector we were sent to two large rooms with TV monitors. I had a very low number so I was called to get my $15 pay and hand in my sign up sheet early on. I was given three five-dollar bills and told to wait for my number to be called again. There was also a “quiet room” where people could wait and not talk. People were reading and on laptops in here. I saw two men reading from Talmud! I spent a lot of my time in this room dozing off (I only slept 4 hours the night before). In one of the rooms where you could talk I overheard one guy saying he had skipped jury duty six times in the past, but he had to go this time or they would “make him”. I heard some other funny ways of getting out of jury duty in this room. One man talked about how in the past he had come to a quick decision just so he did not have to be part of a jury for more than a day or two. I will say that most people seemed like they would be as fair as possible. The people with time constraints seemed like they would just go with the majority.

Since I had a low number I was part of the first batch of people who were called upstairs to be potential jurors. We all sat in a nicely air conditioned court room with a judge, two lawyers and their clients. This case was about a car accident between a cab and another car. The judge asked us some weeding out questions: Do you know any of the people related to this case? Have you heard about this case before? Have you been injured in an accident? Do you know any of the other potential jurors in the room? I actually knew another one of the potential jurors. Both of us stood up and reported to the judge and the two lawyers at the front of the room. They asked us if we would be fair even though we knew each other and if we would talk about the case outside of the courtroom. They seemed happy with our answer. This trial only needed six jurors and an alternate. We were not picked. I think I was not picked because I answered yes to the do you know anyone else in this jury pool question. I think the lawyers did not want to take any chances and only picked jurors who did not stand out in any way.

They let us out for Lunch at about 12:30 (I can’t remember the exact time now). We had a 75 minute lunch break. They opened up a court museum inside the courthouse during this period. I saw four people (including) me walk in to take a look around this room. I walked outside for a little while. Many people spent their $15 at this point. I am very picky about my food so I did not eat. I had planned well so I pocketed my $15. If you are hungry or if you pay for parking your $15 gets spent quickly.

From the end of lunch until 4PM everyone just sat in the waiting rooms. No other trials needed juries (I thought that was odd since I we always hear about how crowded the dockets are). They showed us a movie and I drifted in and out of sleep. I wish I had a laptop. At 4PM they announced that they were about to call a lot of us for another trial but they were just kidding! It was a funny way to end the day. They dismissed us at 4PM.

I really saw no major problems with this side of the justice system. Waiting in lines and sitting around were not fun activities, but it could have been worse (see the bureaucratic nightmare that is the MVA). I hope I get to serve on a jury in Baltimore city one day, but until that day comes I have definitely gained more confidence in the juror-related abilities of some of my fellow citizens.

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Tags: Adam Meister, Baltimore