under duress
Feb. 26th, 2010 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacEvery day for a week I had to check in at 5 p.m. Every day I was told to check back at 11 a.m. the next morning. Every day at 11 a.m. I was told to check back in at 5. Until today when I was told I was dismissed without further ado. In between, however, I couldn't take any out of town trips, or even be more than an hour away at mid-day, in case I received any other message than "check back in at 5." I could not, for instance, go up to the City for a noon concert, as I'd have liked to do. Or anything else.
What was my crime? Was I on probation? Was I one of those offenders who's shackled to an ankle bracelet GPS monitor?
No, none of those. I was on call for jury duty.
Required public duties seem to consist of two things: voting and jury service. Funny, isn't it, how they're offering more and more flexibility about how and when to do the one, but they still keep you on a leash for a week for the other.
We read a lot concerning obstreperous and uncooperative jurors. It might help if they were treated less like patsies during the trial and less like criminal defendants on bail or probation, at the beck and call of every vagary of the court system's schedule, before it.
What was my crime? Was I on probation? Was I one of those offenders who's shackled to an ankle bracelet GPS monitor?
No, none of those. I was on call for jury duty.
Required public duties seem to consist of two things: voting and jury service. Funny, isn't it, how they're offering more and more flexibility about how and when to do the one, but they still keep you on a leash for a week for the other.
We read a lot concerning obstreperous and uncooperative jurors. It might help if they were treated less like patsies during the trial and less like criminal defendants on bail or probation, at the beck and call of every vagary of the court system's schedule, before it.
