Jury Duty, Part II
Tuesday, May 22
9:20am - Day 1 of the trial. Don't have to be there until 10:00, which is nice. Also, I can walk to the courthouse, which is very nice. Another beautiful day on tap and sometimes there is nothing better than a little stroll on a nice clear spring morning. Bad news is I'm officially sick now, yesterday's crap wasn't just a bad day. So my anticipated 5k this evening will suck now. Oh well.
10:07 - Damn near late to arrive thanks to the slow-as-hell McDs on Canal and Lafayette. Also, note to self, no bagel places in SoHo. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't interested in buying a dress at 9:40am.
10:09 - Do you think they'll let me have this notebook with me to take notes during the actual trial? That would be spectacular if not totally unexpected.
10:13 - I'm in the big jury pool room (the one for everybody, including those still waiting to be/not be selected) and somehow it seems much brighter today. I'm wondering how many other people will be in the courtroom. Probably not many since this is a civil trial. Just learned from roll-call that the plaintiff in my case is named Morales.
10:16 - Yes! I just heard the disembodied recording voice again, and since she's short and seated below my eye level of the high half-wall around her desk, she's once again a disembodied voice. Everything's falling into place now.
10:19 - You know, if they let me take notes during the trial, this Thing could be really long.
10:33 - Not sure yet, but might have just gotten my first "celebrity" sighting. NY Times' David Brooks up in the front corner. He's doing the crossword.
10:47 - Just went to the restroom and on my way back got a frontal view (haha) of Brooks and it is not, in fact, Brooks.
11:03 - Courtroom is next door, at 80 Centre St. Jury room is as you'd expect: a small white box, but there are two widows.
11:09 - Fellow jurors are all reading, waiting to be escorted to the courtroom. Not much mingling yet, but I wonder if that's frowned upon. I saw the Fitz & Fitz lawyer out in the hallway so this baby should be imminent. I'm still waiting for the first person to ask me what I'm writing. Must admit, I've got to look suspicious just writing in a notebook continuously for one and half days now.
12:52pm - No notebook in the courtroom. Actually they provide us with one, but we can't keep it, it's confidential, and it gets shredded afterward. So I'll just have to remember.
Bad news: this looks like a lengthy trial. Judge's words: "Worst case scenario plan to be here through June 8." That would be problematic, as I've got a flight out of the city on the evening of June 7. Our first lunch break now and we're only through the plaintiff's opening. Good news is Judge has something called Motion Day on Wednesdays so we don't ever have to report on Wednesdays. Also: standard end time is 4:45. I might hit up a happy hour Thursday or definitely this Friday.
12:59 - Accidentally, I walked out the back door and popped right out into Columbus Park, so there might be an Asian flair to my lunchtime check-ins.
3:32 - Defense openign now over. It occurs to me that I'm nto supposed to be talking to anyone about this case so I think I'll try to refrain from particulars here too. We've had one juror drop out already though. So now we've only got three alternates. The alternate who was promoted to take his place (drop-out was an Asian man) was the cute chick, who I am strangely not as smitten with today. Not sure why. Still cute, I'm just not as interested.
The older man who sits next to me (I'm juror #4, he's #3) smells. He might be incontinent. And yesterday's bull dyke is still here, as just an alternate now, thank god. She may have a learning disability. At the very least, she is unbelievably annoying. Unbelievably. Guarantee I'll have plenty of opportunities yet to describe her, so be patient.
9:21 - There was an undercurrent of loosening up among the jury at the end of the day. Might have just been punchy after the third delay so Judge could speak privately with lawyers. I can't wait to see what happens come week three and everybody is punchy all the time. Impossibly childish/impatient/fidgety bull dyke is liable to wander aimlessly over to the window AC unit, tear it out, and crush the clerk with it. Should mention that the clerk strangely basically has his office, cluttered mess of papers and all, right in the middle of the courtroom. He ever talks on the phone (extremely quietly at least) during the action. he's also packing heat in the form of a little handgun holstered on his right hip. That gun is probably the reason that the weasely-looking motherfucker is the only principal actor that has yet to be seen with a jacket. Between him and the officer who escorts us into the room, that's two guns in a very small room. For all I know the judge and court reporters are packing too. Thanks for that second amendment, Founders.