Jury Duty For Beginners

When will you know you've become an adult? Maybe it's when you walk through the court house doors to serve your very first jury duty! Probably not, but you never know.

Not everyone gets as excited about jury duty as me, but it's really not that bad.

Here's What Happens:

1.  You'll get your jury summons (I believe this starts happening after you register to vote) with instructions to call a number the night before your court date. I had three cancelled jury summons before I finally got to go to court, and even that one had been postponed by two days.

 2.  Your jury summons will probably come with a parking permit, be sure to place it on your dashboard where it will be seen so you don’t get a ticket. Then make your way into the courthouse! Be sure you're on time.

3.  You’ll go through security. Your bag may be checked or sent through a scanner just like at the airport, and you’ll go through a metal detector. One sign said “Leave Your Knives in the Car”, so if you didn't already know that, there you go.

4.  Then begins the waiting and standing in lines. There were about 50 other jurors on the day when I went in, and it was a little disorganized. We had to fill out a brief form to make sure our contact information was current and to sign something I probably should have read more thoroughly because I don’t remember what it said. Then we moved into the courtroom.

5.  We were sworn in as one giant group and the judged introduced the lawyers and the defendant and briefed us on the bare basics of the case. After that we filled out a questionnaire. I can’t tell you about anything after that from personal experience, but for most cases you may get a break (maybe an hour for lunch, or just some time to kill in the courthouse) and then the jury will be chosen and the case will begin.

I always recommend some John Green!

Tips:

1.  Bring a book (or something small and entertaining). Your first instinct might be to play Angry Birds on your phone (if you have one of those fancy phones, I don’t) but it might be a good idea to bring something non-electronic because you shouldn’t be on your phone in the court room. Pay attention when the judge is speaking or the Bailiff is giving instruction, but in my case there was about 15 minutes of downtime while we were waiting for the other jurors to file into the room and sit down.

2.  Bring a small purse or bag with just the essentials. If the security guards have to search it manually you don’t want them to have to wade through a sea of lipstick, tampons, and old receipts.

3. Pay attention. The Bailiff had to repeat herself far too many times and people asked some really stupid questions. Don’t be that juror that everyone rolls their eyes at. Listen when you’re being given information, and write it down if you need to.

4. Dress comfortably. I wore black slacks and a nice blouse, and I was the best dressed juror there. This may be different in the city than in my little mountain town, but people looked very casual. And it makes sense to dress comfortably; you may be sitting for a very long time. Wear layers so you’ll be comfortable whether it’s over air conditioned or hot and stuffy. The only dress code I noticed was a sign that said “NO SHORTS or HATS in the Jury Room”.