Law and Order.

Monday, March 8th, I was summoned to appear for Harris County Jury Duty.

I’ve never been summoned before, and I have to admit, I was not thrilled when I saw the notice in the mail.

I was even less thrilled when I saw that I had been summoned to appear at 8 am on a Monday morning.

Blech.

The big letters at the top of my summons stated that there was a potential fine of $1,000 for not appearing.

Early or not, I have no desire to write a check like that, I dragged my butt out of bed, chugged some coffee, and headed downtown on Monday morning, in the rain.

Since I didn’t know what to expect, I arrived slightly early and found my way to the massive room where all jurors are assembled, before being shuffled out to courts.

My limited experiences with the legal system have always been, ahem, on the OTHER side, as in traffic court.

The judges and bailiffs in traffic court here are NOT nice. Once, a guy closed his eyes for a split second, in a court where I was waiting for my case to be heard. The judge went bananas at this poor guy and threw him out of the court. I’ve seen them come in and throw people out for wearing shorts, and they pretty much threaten to send you to Siberia if you are within 10 feet of a cell phone.

I came to juror assembly prepared to be patted down and threatened in a similar manner.

Ha.

Slap my a** and call me Sally.

Juror assembly was a whole new world!

First of all, the people were NICE!

And, unlike traffic court where any and all electronics short of pacemakers and hearing aids (and even those would make me nervous,) they had Wi-Fi!

WHO KNEW!

There were clearly people there who had been down this road before.

Experienced jurors brought food. Laptops. Books.

AND CELL PHONES!

As I sat there in amazement, realizing that wow, assisting the justice system was kinda like a free day off work,  in walks one of my co-workers!

We looked at each other and laughed, what are the odds, right, of two of us being called on the same day?

We chatted about work, kids, family, it was nice to have a compadre there with me.

Finally, they start to call juror numbers.

I was in the first group called and sent to the ‘blue square.’

I don’t know who thought of this system.

Basically there were a bunch of colored squares painted on the floor of a room and when they called your group of numbers, you went and stood in that square, kinda like grown up hop scotch.

No sooner had I made it to the blue square, when I turned around, and there was my buddy with me! Of the 2,000 people in there, we had been assigned to the same court!

I wanted to run out and buy a lotto ticket right then.

Once we got in the blue square, the nice baliff (remember, they LIKE you in this part of the legal system) gave us all new numbers. I was 16, my friend was 22. This kinda sealed our fate for the day.

We all lined up like second graders, there were 30 of us, and headed through the underground tunnel system, to our assigned Civil Court.

As we waited for security, I told my buddy, “hey, wouldn’t that be funny if I ran into my mom down here, ” and I explained that my mom is a lawyer.

No sooner had I said that, then there appeared my mom, the Red Headed Lawyer!

She was on one side of security, we were on the other.

I waved at her, and she started to point to my group that had already passed through security….”Luz is in here too!!!!”

Yeah, not only was a co-worker in my group, I had not even noticed that one of my mom’s very best friends was with us also!

I passed through security, found her, and gave her a hug.

“Back up, let me look at you” she said, “your mom told me you are wearing a shirt that is inappropriate.”

I think I failed to mention what I was wearing.

I had this super cute shirt that I bought the day before from Old Navy, that said “Life’s A Beach” on it. Ten bucks, okay?

I really think it’s a cute t-shirt! I mean, okay, the letters are bright orange and maybe  4 inches high, but there was no dress code! I never really seriously thought it would be THAT big of a deal!

We filed into the court room, I could almost hear the DUH DUM Law and Order Music playing right then.

I kinda started to get excited.

I still was not wanting to get picked to sit there all day, but it was getting interesting.

As we walked in, the plaintiffs and defendants all stood up, looking at us like we were about to decide their fate.

The first 15 of us headed to the right, the next 15 of the group headed to the left.

My fate was sealed a little more.

Apparently the right side of the room is really the jury, until they strike out a few people.

We were introduced to the plaintiffs and the defendant, and each attorney.

We had Joe Slick attorney (clearly experienced) and Joe Newbie (not so much experience, looked like he might run for the door a few times.)

This was getting kinda good.

They started the juror selection process…..

Joe Slick got to me and the first thing he asked was, “What does your shirt say?”

“Life’s A Beach,” I said. They all laughed.

More questions.

“Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in a car wreck.”

Up went my hand.

“Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen a chiropractor.”

Up went my hand again.

“Raise your hand if you have bumper stickers on your car.”

Sh*t.

I didn’t wanna lie, who knew what they knew about me!

My co-worker, sitting right behind me, didn’t raise his hand once!

Joe Slick pointed to me. “Juror #16, what does your bumper sticker say?”

I paused.

“Life is good?” I mumbled….

Good grief.

Between the BEACH shirt and my bumper sticker, by this time I was thinking that surely these people think I have lied on my juror form, and they think I am certainly not a 4.0 post-graduate MBA HR Consultant, but more likely a pot smoking hippie who should go to jail for lying on the form.

On every question nearly, my hand went up.

And my co-worker sat silent.

Dammit. I just knew he was gonna get to leave.

They finally finished the questions, sent us out, and then called us back.

Can I have the envelope please?

You could hear a pin drop.

“I will now announce the numbers of those selected for the jury, the rest of you are free to leave.”

He started in order.

13…14….15…..16.

Stupid bumper sticker.

And then as I stood up to file out, I realized he had called my co-worker too!

2,000 people in the room at 8 am, and the guy I sit near at work is on the same jury as me!

Now, I thought, I need to just head straight to Vegas and bet big.

What are the odds of that happening!

The other lucky people left, and within 15 minutes, we were hearing opening statements!

Just like TV!

Only there was one big difference…there was not ONE PERSON in the audience, not a soul!

The case involved a car accident. Who was at fault was not up for dispute, no arguing over that.

This was strictly over damages.

And it had taken TWO YEARS to get this case to a trial.

Sheesh.

I prayed silently that we would be out before 5 pm. And then, I prayed some more.

Joe Slick smoothly did his best, Joe Newbie fumbled, but tried hard.

There were motions to object (sustained and over ruled) and a warning to Joe Slick that he was stepping out of bounds.

It wasn’t as interesting as a big huge trial, but watching the process was kinda cool.

We finally got the case at about 4 headed to the juror room, and started to debate.

Back and forth we went for 90 minutes before we were able to unanimously decide on a verdict.

Did I mention that I had a 7:15 pm flight out of town, scheduled for work?

We filed back in, handed down the verdict, and I raced like a bat out of hell, trying to get to the airport and not miss my flight.

I frantically looked for the parking garage, and was totally lost since we’d gone to the court house using underground tunnels.

I finally found the right garage, started to run in, and the police officer directing traffic blew his whistle and yelled at me.

“HEY!”

I turned to look at him.

“Me?”

“YEAH! YOU! DID YOU GET PICKED?”

“Yeah?” I said, thinking, do I look like a juror or what?

“I REMEMBER YOUR SHIRT!” he said, and laughed.

Life’s A Beach.

Who knew?

Case closed!

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