In my 39 years, I've officially entered the U.S. judicial system 3 times: Once as a "standard" witness for a slip n' fall lawsuit (I was the manager on duty who filled out the incident report at the movie theater I worked at 3 years earlier), and twice as an expert witness in two other civil cases (I was retained by the attorney for another web developer in the first instance, and by the attorney for the defendant in a different case 6 years later).
Today, I received notice that I get to participate from a different angle: I've been called in for jury duty for the first time.
A few things I find noteworthy, right off the bat:
--I have to fill out and mail in a "Scan-Tron / #2 Pencil" questionnaire. I was shocked to realize that I had to hunt around the house for 10 minutes in order to find a standard, old-fashioned #2 pencil! I almost always use pens, and the few pencils we have lying around are the mechanical type, where you have no idea what type of graphite they use (for that matter, why is #2 the standard? Why not #1?)
--The questionnaire asks some pretty nosey questions, though I guess that makes sense given the circumstances. However, they don't give you nearly enough space to properly enter your email address. This is a common problem among contact forms of this nature--they give you a tiny little area to enter what could be a pretty long email address, and unlike a physical address, which will most likely make it to the correct place even if there's a typo or two, an email address has to be exact. If you're off by even one character, it'll get bounced, and it's terribly difficult to distinguish a "1" from a lower-case "l", or a "0" from a "o" when it's hand-written.
--The hours you're expected to be in court are 8:30am - 5pm. For compensation, you're given a whopping $25 for the first day and $40 for additional days, or $4.70/hour ($5.30 if you knock an hour off for lunch). Look, I know that it's supposed to be my civic duty and all that, and I realize that there are budget cuts everywhere, but can't they at least pay minimum wage? In Michigan it's $7.40/hour--they should really pay at least $60/day, dont'cha think?
--Here's the one that I'd imagine is causing all sorts of problems these days:
"You are not allowed in the building with (a whole list of weapons)...cell phones with photographic or video capabilities, or any other device equipped with camera or recording features."
Yikes. Considering that every cellphone has at least a camera these days (and many, like my iPhone, also include video recording), that's gotta be a tough one to enforce.
All day without my iPhone? I'll shrivel up into a fetal position, I tells' ya!!
Anyway, should be interesting...will let y'all know how it turns out after it's over (assuming, of course, that a) I'm actually picked to serve, and b) I'm allowed to discuss the case after the fact).