I spell hell "J-U-R-Y D-U-T-Y"

Wow, how I had avoided doing jury duty up until now I suspect is a real feat. When I lived in Chico I received a summons, but I wrote them a letter how I had a "special needs dog" and could not afford to kennel her for days or weeks. It worked!

I have never heard from the good peeps of the Sacramento Court Circus until last week; well, technically they sent the summons WEEKS ago but it was tossed in with the junk mail by accident and retrieved in the nick of time to avoid "problems." Will they really arrest you for not going to jury duty? Will someone then be summoned to serve on a jury to convict you of not attending jury duty? If so, consider yourself toast -- everyone in that jury will be pissed as hell at you for avoiding the thing that would be currently ruining their day.

ANYway, jury duty is a study in self control. It tests your ability to keep from running out of the courthouse at top speed or saying things that may put you in handcuffs. I know it was my fault for not sending in a letter about my hardship of working for a non-profit organization who cannot pay for ANY jury duty; but you'd think that after I stated that fact to an official (and they agreed I couldn't serve on pretty much ANY jury), that they'd let me go to work after that fact was discovered. Nope. I had to sit in front of judge after judge and let them know of my hardship, be dismissed, and then go check back in with the jury pool. Wait, what? If you all you people agree I cannot serve on a jury while working for my current employer, why must I go to other panels only to be excused? It wastes the court's time, it wastes the council's time and it wastes my time.

It looks like they just waste A LOT of people's time because at 3:45 pm, the last panel I sat in was basically 25 people who were in the same predicament as me. The only ones left that late in the day are all people who had been repeatedly excused from other panels, so almost all of us were excused from this one and the lawyers had to call in another group of people -- whom I could over hear their hushed-tone lamenting about how they too had hardships and would just be excused.

While waiting in line to go home, I chatted with several people who HAD sent in letters only to have them returned with a rejection notice -- then they were dismissed by every judge. There should be a better way of doing this to make sure that people are not stiffed a day's pay to be told by a judge that they should not be stiffed a day's pay.

I think I need to go adopt a "special needs" dog.