Federal Jury Duty

I received a summons for jury duty in the United States District Court for Northern Indiana in South Bend. After filling out an online survey in December to make sure I qualified, I didn't hear anything until March. The March notice was a summons for jury duty on April 3rd. I had to go online to fill out another survey about my media usage, club and organization memberships, whether I had ever served on a jury, etc.

It took me about an hour to drive to South Bend in the dark and rain Monday morning. I then had to find a parking garage and walk about a block to the entrance of the court building. My husband had me look on Google Earth the night before which was helpful as I had some idea of what the buildings for the garage and courthouse looked like. I am not very familiar with downtown South Bend. Once in the building I went through a security screening machine. Our instructions had told us not to bring laptop computers, cell phones, nor tablets into the courthouse. The lady in front of me had a tablet and her phone which slowed things up since she had to dig them out of her bag and check them for later retrieval. I had packed a light lunch, including a bottle of drink. Nowhere on the web site nor in the letter did it say liquids could not be brought in. They confiscated my drink and told me I could pick it up as I left the courthouse. (Oddly enough, during our preliminary instructions, we were told hot water and instant coffee were all that was made available to us and people could bring in their own cup of coffee. Some inconsistency there.)

When I went for jury duty in Dallas, Texas, we gathered in a huge room where throughout the morning, a portion of the jury pool would be called and escorted to a courtroom. It turned out there was just one trial scheduled in the federal court. A total of 39 potential jurists were put in a rather crowded room. We spent from 8:30 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. in this room which had restroom facilities. During that time roll call was done (2 no-shows but one arrived later). We watched a video with Sandra Day O'Connor and a federal judge telling us how important jury duty was. There was a lady who explained some of the details of serving, and two former jurists who commented on some of the aspects of being on a jury. When the video was done, we were assigned numbers which had been decided randomly. I was number 39 so I felt pretty sure I would not be serving on the jury.

In my previous jury duty in Dallas, the lawyers were the ones who questioned the potential jury members. Here, only the judge spoke to us. He introduced the people in the courtroom to us. He asked us as a group some general questions. Folks were to raise their hands if they answered yes to his questions. Using a microphone, each person had to make some comments as to why he/she raised hands. The judge told them he would do a side-bar during the questioning of individuals which would include the lawyers. There was some "white noise" static that was turned on any time someone was at the bench discussing matters with the judge so the rest of us could not hear anything.

Numbers 1 thru 12 were seated in the jury box. After all of the questioning and side-bars were finished, 7 out of the 12 were excused. There was no way to know if they were excused with cause or if they were preemptory decisions. The case was a charge of drug possession and dealing plus illegal possession of a firearm. During the general questioning, 10 out of the 39 jurists stated they had family members who were addicted to drugs, had ODed, or were serving time for drug offenses. Almost 25 per cent of the potential jurists. Not too surprisingly, most of those people were among those excused, even those who had initially said they would not be influenced in deliberations by the family history. It really brought home to me the extent of drug problems in Indiana.

It took over 2 1/2 hours to whittle down the numbers. In the end, 15 were excused. The jury had twelve members plus two alternates. There were just 10 of us on the back row who didn't have to go into the jury box. We were excused around 12:30.

In the federal court system, if you don't get on a jury, you remain in the pool for 3 months and can be called for future trials. None of the material I was sent ever said when the 3 month period began and ended. I answered my first questionnaire on December 7th, but obviously that was not the start of my serving time since I was called to appear April 3rd. So I guess I might be called to appear thru June. The trial where I appeared Monday was expected to go thru Wednesday and possibly into Thursday. One could ask to postpone service if important medical treatment/tests were already scheduled or if one had vacation plans that could not be easily changed. I liked jury duty better when you knew a specific date in advance and could plan around it. It's not going to be that way with federal jury duty.