Unlucky at jury duty

I received jury duty summons a few weeks ago and was ordered to report to the Queens County courthouse in Kew Gardens last Wednesday (Feb. 11). Technically I had gotten this back in November for the week of Thanksgiving, but deferred it 3 months since I had travel plans then.

I have never gotten this far in jury duty in my life; I got summons once while in California but in the end they didn't even have me to come to the courthouse.

To prepare, I read someone else's blog post about their experience on a civil jury in Manhattan. Biggest takeway: allocate extra time in the morning to make it through the metal detector — I endorse that advice.

After going through the metal detector, I sat down in basically a holding room and waited until enough time had passed for everyone to arrive. They asked if anyone was not a citizen, under 18, or no longer a Queens resident (this will be important later on) and then started playing some videos (which seem to be available online in case you're curious).

I have no idea how much like marketing or testing goes into making the videos, but well, they were pretty boring. Dunno why they don't have some NYC celebrity narrate them instead of the chief judge.

Around 11ish, they start calling out names that'll be assigned to the "Tap-C" courtroom. About 60 people, including myself, are told to follow the court officer out the building and over to the criminal courthouse. And then once we get over there, he tells us that we now have a two-hour lunch break and to meet him in that same spot afterwards.

We finally get into the courtroom at ~2:45. The judge welcomes us, apologizes for only getting started after lunch, and then explains that this is a homicide trial, in which the defendant is accused of murdering someone using a knife. The trial is expected to take two weeks, which he claims is on the shorter end, and that normally it would take about a month.

Then they draw 16 names out of what was basically a bingo cage and have them all sit in the jury box. The judge starts doing a socratic lecture on burden of proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, presumption of innocence, etc. Basically all the principles I learned last semster in Criminal Law, except aimed at lay jurors.

After that, the judge ran through a questionaire with the 16 prospective jurors.

• Where were you born?
• What part of Queens do you live in?
• Do you work? What do you do?
• Are you married? If so, what do they do for work?
• Do you have any kids? How old are they?
• Have you ever served on a grand jury before? A trial jury?
• Have you ever been the victim of a crime? Accused of a crime? Witness to a crime? Convicted of a crime?
• Have you ever been party to a civil lawsuit?
• Do you, or anyone you know or are related to, work for law enforcement? If so, can you promise not to discuss the case with them?

It was fascinating to hear the backgrounds of the supposedly random 16 Queens residents; mostly middle-class jobs, about half married and half unmarried. Far more from eastern ("deep") Queens and only one or two from western Queens.

One surprise when someone said "Oh, actually I moved to New Jersey last week". Like, you could've left in the morning when they asked!! You probably didn't even need to show up in the first place!!

Another potential juror said they worked for NYPD Legal, and after further questioning, explained that part of their job responsibility is notifying officers when they are being sued civilly.

One person said she wouldn't be able to handle the trial and make a fair judgement because her son had been stabbed multiple times and that she'd never be able to not consider that, it was pretty sad :(

At first I thought the defense attorney was being a little incompetent in how imprecisely she was asking jurors questions on whether they'd be able to deliver an impartial verdict, but it actually ended up being quite clever as multiple potential jurors ended up saying things that would be sufficient to get them struck for cause.

They did a second round of the 16 people being interviewed, but in the end I never even made it to that preliminary stage and was dismissed after 2 days.

Contrary to most people, I actually want to end up on a jury. I think it would be an important and exciting civic responsibility.