now that my jury duty is over and i can legally talk about my jury duty, a short list of things that i have learned about jury duty:
- when the judge wants to sidebar with the lawyers they turn on a static noise machine for the jury. this is very like the experience of being trapped inside a television
- sometimes they load the entire court – judge, lawyers, court reporters, jury, etc. – onto a bus and take you all on a little field trip to see a crime scene. this is very like the experience of being in elementary school
- when you are on a jury field trip you May Not share a seat, you May Not speak, and you May Not look at anything you have not been officially told you can look at. this is very like the experience of being trapped inside a point-and-click adventure except that instead of being limited in your investigation by the constraints of the game mechanics, you are instead limited in your investigation by the court officers herding you around like ducks with their long wooden Official Court Staffs
- no matter how much an FBI agent may encourage the court to call him kevin, the court will not call him kevin