Jury Duty: City versus the County

I had jury duty for the City of Dallas yesterday. Today I had jury duty for the county. Because I am just lucky that way.

There are many differences between city and county jury duty. But for the internet’s sake, I will just hit the highlights.

• Start time for the city is 9 AM. Start time for the county is 8:30 AM. Neither is close to a coffee shop, but the Municipal Building does have a 7-11 across the street.



• You have to stand to be sworn in at the city. You can sit over at the county.



• The county has a large auditorium for potential jurors with comfy seats. The city has a room with several rows of plastic chairs. The first time I had jury duty for the city in 2005 I had to sit on the floor because every seat in the room was already taken.



• The county pays you $6 for your time (assuming, of course, you don't waive or donate your fee). The city gives you a stamped piece of paper informing you that “no fee was [or will be] paid”.



• The county validates discounts your parking. The city does nothing. So, basically, it cost me $12 in parking fees to perform my civic duty for the city on Monday and $3 today.



• The county gives you a juror badge, punch out DART pass and directions to the Central Jury Room. The city just directs you - without going into ANY specifics whatsoever - to the second floor of the Municipal Building downtown. Please note that the second floor is large, and to get to the juror room you have to go up a flight of stairs, down another, walk down a hallway, turn right and go to the forth door on your left. And, no. There are no signs.



• The county has a video explaining the basics of jury duty. They don't tell you they are going to show you a film, much less that a film exists and they consider it to be mandatory viewing. They just unceremoniously turn off the lights around 9:15 AM and start rolling. For about 30 seconds after the lights have gone out (but before the film starts), the jury pool is convinced that there has been some sort of power outage.



• Said jury 101 video at the county was hosted by Clarice Tinsley. The city on Monday had a TV in the jury room that was tuned to channel 4. All this could lead someone to believe that jury duty in Dallas is somehow sponsored by the Fox network.



• The county mandates that you fill out a survey before reporting for duty. REQUIRED questions include race, religion, marital status and spouse’s name and occupation. I am not sure why answering these questions was mandatory, since it has absolutely no bearing on my ability to be a juror. The city, on the other hand, doesn't care if it has your address correct or not.



• Don't show for the city, and they issue you another summons. Don't show for the county, and they issue you a citation.

Unlike in 2007, I was not chosen to sit on an actual jury this time around. But it did give me the opportunity to read two very good books over the course of my combined eight hours of service. Which, if you are me, is kind of fantastic. Almost like vacation. If going on holiday included a random gathering of my fellow residents - most with hacking coughs or significant congestion - on two consecutive early mornings with no coffee, a bunch of metal detectors and very expensive parking.

Yep. Fan-tastic.

As if having municipal jury duty wasn't bad enough...

I know we live in a free country and it is fantastic and all of that, BUT:

1. It is NEVER okay to clip your finger and toenails while waiting in a jury room in public (the noise! THE NOISE!).



2. Even if it WAS okay (which, again, it is not), you should properly dispose of said clippings. NOT leave them scattered on the floor around your seat.

Seriously. Sometimes I hate people.

Explain this to me...

I have lived in my house now for almost two years. Well, two years in May, but close enough.

Back in the fall of 2009, I ordered tickets to a series of concerts. The company had my old address on file (for simplicity’s sake, let’s say I used to live on Casanova Street and currently live on Dodger Avenue), and – as a result – I never received said tickets. And, ironically, this was still in the six month window the post office promised to continue to forward my mail.

But you expect stuff like this to happen when you move. You try to remember to update as many things as possible, but things go astray. It happens.

Last month we were invited to a party, but never received the invitation. The sender has accidentally transposed the last two digits of our Dodger zip code, and the post office returned the invitation to her. Never mind that you can Google our address and it comes up without the zip, but whatever. Apparently, an accurate zip code is very important to the USPS.

As for receiving mail from my old house on Casanova, though? Yeah, that hasn't happened in nearly a year and a half. Well, until two days ago when a jury summons landed in my mailbox.

And, yes, I updated my address on my drivers license AND voter registration card. That was done within a month of purchasing our current home on Dodger back in May of 2009. Which begs the question: Why did my jury summons go to my old address on Casanova? And - more importantly - why did the USPS deliver it to my current address on Dodger? There wasn't even a delay. It was postmarked two days before it arrived. And there wasn't even a mail forwarding stamp on the envelope. It simply arrived like it was addressed to me on Dodger instead of Casanova.

I just don't get it.

I find this nearly as puzzling as the City of Dallas Special Collections Department, which for reasons completely unknown to me, has my alarm permit registered to my old house on Casanova and my MAILING address listed on Dodger. I have called. Emailed. Mailed letters. Everything. And, yet, they still don't seem to understand that I want my alarm permit for my CURRENT home on Dodger. I have even cancelled my existing alarm permit with the city and reapplied. Nothing seems to work.

Maybe it is just me?

A Series of Unfortunate Events…

So, there is a lot of bad karma going around lately. Why? Yeah, no clue. It seems to be contagious, though, and I’m kind of convinced that my bad luck has now rubbed off on poor Trevor.

I’m not really sure when my bad luck began, but it was sometime last spring (you may remember THIS POST and THIS POST). Since then things haven’t improved, only gotten worse. A LOT worse.

I’ll spare you the complete run down of all the “oh-woe-is-me” moments that have transpired over the past couple of months. Instead, let me sum it up with the following:

- I was almost fired for something I didn't do.

- There are about a gazillion rumors going around about me at the office. None of them are true.

- I was selected to sit on jury for a two day criminal trial at a time when sitting on a jury could not have been more inconvenient.

- I came down with a nasty sinus infection.

- My garage door came off its track and almost fell on me and my car.

- Fire ants got into my electrical box AND ate the wood-siding surrounding it.

- My neighbors have made my dog neurotic (a story I will tell at a later date), and Gypsy Kitty is now eating – yes, EATING – the front door.

Then, to make matters worse, I had three consecutive days of 666. This is NEVER a warm fuzzy feeling. Worse still: it all started on the 6th day of July! Coincidence? I think not!

DAY ONE: I was holding my portable phone under my arm when it started beeping at me. This was weird because I frequently carry my portable phone around under my arm, and have never had it beep at me before. Alarmed, I removed said phone from my arm pit and was horrified to discover that it was flashing 666 at me.

DAY TWO: I went to Jamba Juice and ordered a smoothie for lunch. My total? $6.66!

DAY THREE: While driving to see a movie, we were passed by a large pick up truck. The first three letters of the license plate: 666!

All this 666 nonsense was extremely disconcerting, and I was kind of convinced that something really bad was (or possibly still is) about to happen. So. Not. Cool.

Now, all the bad luck seems to have been caught by Trevor (like the flu, but different). Last week ALONE Trevor was:

- Stuck in a pretty dramatic hail storm in North Dallas.

- Left stranded at the Movie Trading Company after his car broke down.

- Evicted from his apartment.

It is important to mention that Trevor was only evicted from his apartment because the owners are planning on remodeling the entire complex. He isn’t a bad tenant. He just has bad luck.

Anyway, last week I went to Home Depot, and opted for self checkout. After completing my purchase, I discovered two things:

1. The person before me had forgotten their change (almost $20).

2. Some one had left an envelope with about 25 $20 bills on top of the register.

I was ecstatic. Finally! A way to appease Karma! I immediately turned both the unclaimed change and envelope full of cash over to the employee supervising the self checkout area. I felt sure that this act would help turn my luck around. Unfortunately, though, not much has changed. Just yesterday I managed to cut myself pretty badly with a dull razor while shaving my legs. Le sigh. Maybe I’m cursed?

In other news, I’m trying to find comfort in the fact that others have also had a streak of bad luck recently. After all, misery loves company, right? Alas. Maybe there is some sort of astrological trigger behind it all? Not that I really buy into that kind of stuff or anything, but I haven’t spoken to a Leo lately that wasn’t having a bad day, month or year. Grrrr…

~ The End ~

Jury Duty (well, sort of...)

Okay, so today was "Jury Duty Day". I got to skip work (because, we all know that there are no work related excuses for missing jury duty) armed with nothing more than a good book, a Cosmo (yes, I know. Cosmo is garbage, but sometimes reading trash is just so much...fun. Stop judging me), and my jury summons.

I arrived promptly at 9:30 AM. I would have been earlier, but I forgot that parking downtown is...hmmmm...a challenge. It didn't matter, though, because I was on time regardless (and by "on time" I really mean that I wasn't the last juror to arrive. If you are into specifics then, YES! I was exactly 8 minutes late. Blame it on what happens next. Again with the judgments...!).

I was briefly slowed down by security. Even though I lived in DC for two years, it didn't dawn on me until I was standing in line that I would have to go through a metal detector. I definitely would have put more thought into my outfit if I had remembered that little tidbit of information. I had on pants that...uh...definitely required a belt. So, when I had to remove the belt my oh-so-cute-but-a-tad-baggy-because-I-bought-them-on-sale-and-they-didn't-have-my-size-so-I-bought-a-size-too-big-and-never-had-them-taken-in pants almost fell down. Despite my attempt to hide this fact, it still got a giggle from the security lady. I knew I should have worn jeans!

The only reason that I didn't wear jeans was because I watched 20 minutes of LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT the night before, and noticed that there was a definite lack of people on the crime/court drama wearing jeans (or t-shirts for that matter). This caused me to - at the last minute - reconsider my "jury duty outfit" (which was, in case you haven't guessed, a t-shirt and jeans). So, long story short, I decided to dress up. Well, dress up a little bit, at least. I wasn't going to the prom, after all.

I was going for "working casual" (wwhatever that means...!).

Anyway, it was all apparently for not. I saw a lot of people in jeans and t-shirts seated in the jury holding pen. They looked really comfortable. Damn.

So, it was around the time that I was attempting to put my belt back through the belt loops on my too-big-but-cute-pants that I suddenly realized I had left both my jury summons and my cell phone in the car (that I had finally parked in a garage two and a half blocks away from the Municipal Court, by the way). This, of course, meant that I had NO idea where to go (since the jury room number was printed on the stupid letter).

So, I did what any normal person would do: I started wondering mindlessly around the building. I know you think this is stupid, but there is SO much method in this particular madness. Case in point: there are tiny, post-it sized notes posted randomly placed around the courthouse. If you find a pink one and follow it to another pink one - you will eventually be lead to the jury holding pen. I thought of it like "going on a treasure hunt. 'X' marks the spot". It was almost fun (in a not-so-much-fun kind of way).

Anyway, I walked into the jury waiting room and checked in with the officer at the table (who, of course, asked for my jury summons that I didn't have). This took awhile, because he - for reasons unknown to me - kept thinking that my name was Karen (which it is not). However, it didn't seem to matter how many times I told him my name wasn't "Karen", because he just kept scanning the list looking for a "Karen" anyway. This might have been comical if it wasn't so frustrating.

Once we worked that little problem out (and by that I really mean: "convinced him of my non-Karen status"), I turned to look for an empty chair (of which there were none). So, I finally began the process of...well...waiting standing up. Great. This was turning out to be a great day.

So, about half an hour goes by and then this official looking woman enters the room and swears us all in. I couldn't help but notice that the lady directly in front of me held up her left hand instead of her right. I kept looking around the room to see if anyone else noticed it, too (I don't think anyone did). It crossed my mind to point her out (because I was sure that raising the wrong hand was somehow analogous to crossing your fingers when you promise). However, before I could do this, the swearing in process was over. We were all instructed to put on our "official jury badges" and to make ourselves comfortable. The official looking woman told us that we would know by lunchtime whether or not our services would be required.

Then the official looking woman...just...left.

It was just me, the bailiff and about 80 strangers.

So, I sat down on the floor (remember that there were no extra chairs) and started to read my book. I was actually quite comfortable on the floor, but the bailiff was upset that I didn't have a chair (even though I wasn't). He (bless his heart) went down the hall and found an extra chair and brought it back for me. However, his efforts were in vein because by the time he got back eight jurors (that were late) finally showed up. Poor guy. He had to swear them in one at a time.

In case you were curious, though, I never did get the chair. However, the bailiff was such a sweet guy (in a grandfatherly kind of way) that I really - honestly - didn't mind. I figured that it was just one of those cases where "it's the thought that counts". Cliche, I know, but - hey - it's all good.

Anyway, continuing on, there was a TV set up in front of the room, and around 10:30 AM this lady decided to turn it on. Judge Judy was just coming on (lucky me). This was followed by another episode of Judge Judy at 11, and "The Texas Judge" at 11:30.

Just in case you don't know me, I hate reality court shows. But you know what I hate more than reality court shows?...I HATE watching court shows while I'm waiting to go into a courtroom!! Why - for the love of God - did we have to watch bad court TV? We were there for JURY DUTY!! JURY. DUTY. Wait an hour and you won't have to watch court TV because you'll be in the freakin' courtroom!

So, I kinda felt like I was going to lose it by the time "The Texas Judge" had finally gotten around to making his ruling. And, I mean I really almost lost it. Thank goodness that the official looking woman came back in and (God love her) turned off the TV.

"Good afternoon," the official looking woman announced (there was an audible moan from several potential jurors when she clicked off "The Texas Judge"). "I'm sure you are all wondering why nothing has happened yet. Well, we are still waiting to hear back from all of the courts, but - don't worry - it shouldn't be much longer.

In the mean time, I need to make everyone in this room aware of something very, very important. The letter that you received summoning you for jury duty here today is very hard to understand. We are currently in the process of rewriting it, and we are very sorry for the confusion. The draft of the letter that you all received had a very important piece of information left off by accident. There are actually FOUR reasons why a juror may be disqualified for service in the City of Dallas, but only THREE are printed on your jury summons.

You can also be disqualified from jury duty if you do NOT live permanently in the City of Dallas. This is very confusing to a lot of people, because on the jury summons it clearly states 'Dallas County' several times. Dallas County is much, much larger than the City of Dallas. However, because the letter says 'Dallas County' instead of 'The City of Dallas' we tend to have a lot of people show up for jury duty that are, in fact, ineligible to serve in the City of Dallas.

So, if you live in the Park Cities, for example, you are not qualified to sit on a jury in the City of Dallas. The Park Cities have their own separate municipalities. Therefore, if you live anywhere other than the City of Dallas, I must ask you to leave at this time".

I am not even kidding when I tell you that half of the freakin' room got up at this point and started to file out of the room. One lady in particular (she was wearing a large silver bracelet with huge turquoise beads on it) was absolutely livid that she had, "sat around for the better part of three hours for nothing". She marched up to the official looking woman and gave her a very, very stern talking to. From what I heard, the turquoise bracelet lady didn't mind doing her civic duty, but she felt misled that the official looking woman did not inform her of her disqualification from the start (say, uh, when she was...I don't know...SWEARING US IN)!

Quite frankly, I agreed with the turquoise bracelet lady. But, I didn't care enough to say anything (it was one of the very few times that I've actually been excited about having a Highland Park address on my drivers license). Plus, I was much more concerned about getting the heck out of there and enjoying the remainder of my day off.

The officer who had originally signed me in when I arrived (not to be confused with the sweet bailiff who...uh...almost brought me a chair) got to sign me out as well. He asked me if I needed an excuse for work, and I figured "hey, why not"?

So, yeah, he totally made my excuse out for "Karen". I didn't bother to correct him, though. I think I was secretly impressed with his consistency...

Thus concludes my jury duty experience. I know you are all impressed. I think that I'll stick with my original assertion that the City of Dallas is - at the very least - "special".

Awe-some.

Jury Duty...

So, last week I received a letter from the "Department of Court & Detention Services". It is always very weird when you look at an envelope address to you from the "Department of Court & Detention Services". You know that it is probably just a jury duty notice, but you still panic (briefly, of course). For a split second you wonder if you've actually done something wrong, and been caught doing it. Like, for example, mounting an archeological dig in an empty elevator because your undies have retreated to a place better not mentioned. Okay, that's not "illegal" as much as "embarrassing".

I read in Cosmo (yes, Cosmo. I know. Shut up) that something like 37% of guys have been caught doing something...uh..."naughty" on camera. So, maybe (just maybe) the "Department of Court & Detention Services" is monitoring these incidents of elicit/delinquent behavior, and they are notifying me accordingly of my very public (or private) "wrong doings".

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if I got a notice from the "Department of Court & Detention Services" because the Highland Park police had (gasp!) witnessed my dogs pooping in my yard. No, I am not kidding. Dog poo is a health code violation in little, ole' HP, and is punishable by up to $500. Funny thing is that my dogs only seem to poop in my yard. I do "dog poo maintenance" once a week, but I have to admit that I very, very rarely pick up the poo immediately after my dog deposits it. After all, it is my yard (well, sorta. I'm house-sitting at my grandmother's until the family can sell her house).

Anyway, since I don't pick up the poo immediately, my neighbors have apparently decided that I LIKE dog poo and bring their dogs over to add to my canine fecal collection. It is either that, or they KNOW that I cannot afford to live in "the bubble" and are making social commentary with dog sh*t.

So, sometimes just to be a bother (or, if you prefer, a mite passive aggressive), I'll let my dogs out into the front yard to poo when I see a HP police SUV (yes, they drive Chevy Tahoes) parked nearby. Honestly, it is a challenge to the cop. A dropped gauntlet, if you will. I want the cop to come over and try to give me a ticket for allowing my dogs to defecate in MY yard.

The same night (this was several months ago) that close family friends of mine got robbed at gunpoint over on Abbott, the HP police were busy giving me a warning that my dogs were barking "louder than the allotted number of decimals in Highland Park". This took...ah, yes...not one cop, but two. And they each had their giant, SUV cop car with them. So, the front of my house looked like a scene from Fox's "COPS". Nevermind the fact that the dogs were only barking in the first place because there were two strange men standing in my front yard (probably making note of each and every pile of dog poo for their upcoming "health code sting").

Sorry, officers. According to my dogs, you two are STRANGERS. I forgot to teach them the whole "cop uniform = good" thing. I was more concerned with making sure they were house-broken.

I'm sure my family friends would absolutely love to know that the night they were accosted, there were TWO cops dealing with a "canine noise violation" less than half a mile away. Figures.

Actually, it is a very smart method, if you stop and think about it. The Highland Park Police are infamous for arresting 99 year old women for minor traffic violations. I guess you don't have to worry so much about your personal safety or getting hurt on the job if your biggest concerns are absent-minded geriatrics and pooing, barking dogs.

Oh, and don't forget about your typical upper-class housewife. You gotta keep your eyes on them - they are bad-to-the-bone. They drive around looking for trouble. Case in point: one of my dad's "lady friends" was arrested (yes, arrested) for pulling a rolling stop at a stop sign. They handcuffed her, and dragged her down to the Highland Park Police Station where they proceeded to book her. Bail was set at $800, and the only form of acceptable payment was cold hard cash (no checks, no credit, no money orders allowed). Too bad that my dad's "lady friend" was driving to dinner and only had a few dollars in her purse. Too bad the banks close at 5 PM. Too bad my dad's "lady friend's" mother didn't have $800 in cash just lying around in her Highland Park mansion.

Conclusion: poor "lady friend" had to spend the night in jail for committing a rolling stop violation. I guess she learned her lesson.

Meanwhile, people are getting robbed a mere five blocks from the police station. Yeah, so that makes sense! Way to prioritize there, boys.

But I digress. Back to the "Department of Court and Detention Services"...

So, I get this letter and I open it half expecting it to be a notice that I've been caught doing something...well...bad. But, of course, all it really is a jury summons.

Which brings me to my next point. Has anyone ever read a jury summons before? I mean really, really read it? In case you haven't, there are three reasons why you can be "disqualified" from jury duty:

Number 1 - you are not, "a resident of the City of Dallas, Texas, and qualified to vote in said city elections under the constitution and laws of the State of Texas".

Number 3 - you, "have been convicted of a felony or theft" or you are, "under indictment for or other legal accusation of felony or theft".

Which leaves us with reason Number 2.

Are you ready for this? Drum roll please...

Reason 2 of 3 why you can be disqualified from jury duty in the City of Dallas is because you are, "not able to read or write".

So, let's just say, for the sake of argument, that you are not literate in any sense of the word. And then one day you receive a jury summons from the City of Dallas. How are you going to be able to read and understand what the typed font is telling you? How are you going to know that, "you are hereby summoned to appear in the Central Jury Room on the 2nd floor of the Municipal Building at the above address on [this date and time] for service on the petit jury in the Municipal Court of the City of Dallas. If you are disqualified or exempt from jury service under the law as set forth on this notice, you may submit the completed and signed form below. This must be received no later than the date and time specified for your appearance. Disobedience of this summons is punishable by a fine"?

In other words, how are you going to know that it is a jury summons to begin with?

Really. How are you going to be able to know what the letter is, much less what it is telling you to do? And, I beg you to please explain to me how - if you cannot read or WRITE - are you going to be able to, "sign the form and mail it to the above address" like the directions demand?

Personally, if I were illiterate, I think I would conclude that the City of Dallas was mocking me and my modern world disability. Of course, I wouldn't be able to reach this conclusion unless I found someone literate and forced them to READ the letter to me. Even then, I would still be unable to perform the task of A) signing my name, and B) mailing the form back to the address on the letter (this would require me to be able to READ the address in the first place as well as WRITE the address on to an envelope). Might as well command me bend the rules of gravity and fall up - it just ain't going to happen!

Which leaves me with what option? Going down to the Municipal Building on the date that the letter ordered me to appear? Can you imagine doing that? You know, walking up to someone in the building with your jury summons in-hand and matter-of-factly informing them that you are disqualifying yourself from jury duty because you are illiterate?

If I were the receptionist at the Municipal Building and someone walked up to my desk and informed me that they were illiterate and were, thus, disqualifying themselves from jury duty I would be like, "Yeah. Okay, sure. You're illiterate."

"No really. I am."

"Yeah. Okay. And I'm Garfield the Cat."

"Whatever, lady. I'm unable to read or write."

"Sugar. If you were unable to read or write, then explain to me how you knew to appear here today?"

"I had someone read the letter to me."

"Uh-huh. Riiiiight. We will let you know when we need you. Next in line, please."

Like salt on an open wound. Your only other option is to wait to be fined for not showing up to jury duty. However, the notice that you are being fined will probably come through the mail, and to find out how much the fine is for you will again have to seek out a literate person to READ the letter to you.

Therefore, at the end of the day, you are being fined because you cannot read or write - even though the fact that you are illiterate should have cleared you from all jury duty related responsibilities (and penalties) in the first place.

In other words, you need to be able to read and write to tell the City of Dallas that you cannot read or write. If you cannot do this, then you should prepare yourself for a fine. Because THAT makes logical sense?!!

I heard on the news the other day that 80% of the people that the City of Dallas summons for jury duty on any given day do not show up. Because of this staggering statistic, the City of Dallas has announced that they are going to start arresting people that play "hooky" from their jury duty responsibilities.

So, let's recap...

If you are illiterate and you get called for jury duty, and you cannot read or write to explain to the City of Dallas that you are, in fact, illiterate (thus, disqualifying yourself from the jury pool) then you now will be fined and/or arrested for being a jury dodging truant.

Apparently, simply being fined isn't enough. Now you run the risk of jail time because of your innate inability to read or write. Because, you know, it wasn't bad enough already that you were illiterate in the first place. Seems a little unfair somehow, doesn't it?!

At least we all can go to sleep tonight knowing the real criminals are behind bars (i.e. the illiterate jury dodgers and the upper-class housewives that commit the mortal sin of a minor moving violation). I'm sure that once we clean up ALL the dog poo in this city that we will finally have the time to focus on getting the rapists, thieves, murderers and drug dealers off the street.

Until then, though, please watch where you step. That pesky dog poo is EVERYWHERE!