I had jury duty today, and the past week… I’ve been thinking a lot about our justice system and the role of jurors. I don’t know that I would consider myself a very political person, but the idea of jury duty fills me with a strong sense of patriotism.
So I got tagged for Jury Duty today (well, for the selection process anyways). When you’re summoned for the selection process, there’s a number you have to call, to see if you’re officially supposed to show up or not. You can’t call this number until 4:30 PM, the day prior to when you’re supposed to show. When I called yesterday, they wanted people with last names D through S, which is… a pretty huge range, to me. But since I fell into the net, I was slated to show up.
Best of luck, my friend. I hope your natural ability to detect criminals by “the way they just look all guilty” gets you off the hook. Although, given your track record in Chicago… my hunch is they’ll pick you. Related:I Get Called for Jury DutyJury Duty: Security CheckJury Duty: Jury LoungeJury Duty: Outside the CourtroomJury Duty: QuestionsJury Duty: The Selection…
A few weeks back, I got another notice that I was called for Jury Duty. I’m not sure what this “Summons for Standby Jury Service” is all about. I don’t know if I’m just a potential or, worse, if I might get sucked into one of those multi-week, sequestered trials where everyone ends up in the Witness Protection Program. Last…
So nice… I get to do it twice! Got this fun letter over the weekend. Interestingly, this time around I guess I only have to call once (as opposed to calling for an entire week). I figured one only has to do Jury Duty once a year at the max, but apparently not. Maybe I can get called repeatedly. I…
At the start of the month, I received a rather ominous letter letting me know that the photos I took documenting my Jury Duty experience were in violation of local court rules. More than that, the letter stated that my “willful actions could result in a Contempt of Court Citation.” Needless to say, I was pretty alarmed by this. To…
Ok. Uhm – wow. So apparently, I was in violation of local laws when I took photos during my Jury Duty service, a few weeks back. I knew that I wasn’t allowed to photograph inside the courtroom, during an actual trial (which I didn’t do). But I didn’t realize that the corridors near the Jury Lounge and the Jury Lounge…
Looking over my stats this morning in Google Anaylitcs, I saw a few search strings that brought people to my site. Specifically, someone was searching using “wayne adams” rotkvich as their search terms. I didn’t recognize the names, and wasn’t sure why anyone would pull my site up searching under those keywords. Weird. And so, being the good detective that…
Listening to everyone talk, it was surprising how much personal information was given out on the public record. Watching everyone talk (each person held a mic while they spoke), it was like getting this brief little snapshot into their lives. During the process, we were told that if we preferred to reveal some information privately to the judge and lawyers,…
Wayne Adams v. Oscar Szczerbinski, Carol Dougherty, Richard Lalowski, Jeffrey Rotkvich, Michael Holdman, Richard Roszuszka, James Prandini and the City of Des Plaines. Hon. Virginia M. Kendall, U.S. District Court Judge. 1) Your full name, spell the last name. 2) Your age. 3) City of residence for the last 5 years (not the address). If Chicago, identify area of the…
Up in the building, we formed two lines in the hallway and waited outside our courtroom. It was about 24 of us in total, and we all stood against two sides of the hallway, sort of facing one another. We were waiting for what seemed like 5-10 minutes, in almost total silence. The entire hallway area was devoid of anyone…
[IMAGE REMOVED DUE TO POSSIBLE CONTEMPT OF COURT CITATION] Room 250: the Jury Lounge. Inside here, I waited with about 100 other potential jurors. On walking in, I saw no one at the front desk… and was unsure what to do. Imagine walking into a large college lecture hall, and you find yourself suddely facing the entire classroom, only you’re…