I have jury duty today. In DC Superior Court they do “one day or one trial” service. It may seem like a pain but when you consider that residents of the District of Columbia, you know, those of us with no actual voting representation in Congress, are the jury pool for certain Federal court trials where jury service consists of being on call for a whole month and not knowing from one day to the next whether you’re going to court or you’re going to work “one day or one trial” is comparatively not bad.
Conditions have supposedly improved: the Court’s web site tells me there is now free wi-fi in the jurors’ room. That’s a far cry from “we have four modems and whoever gets here first gets to sit on them all day because we’re not policing that.”
On the other hand: it’s jury duty.
There may be more entry later in the day. It just depends on the wi-fi speed and how much I can stand to type on the iPad’s stunted, badly arranged “keyboard.”
What does irk me about how jury duty service is handled in DC is that some of us have to serve longer. If you have the 8 a.m. call and you aren’t put on a trial you usually get dismissed around 4 p.m. and if you have the 10 a.m. call and you don’t get put on a trial you usually get dismissed…around 4 p.m. A sense of civic pride doesn’t compensate me for that extra 2 hours, does it?
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