Runaway Jury

So for the 2nd time in the last month or so I've received a Jury Duty summons. You have to call in the night before to make sure that the trial actually happens. The first time the trial got canceled so I didn't have to go in, but this last time I did have to go in. There were about 30 people and the first thing you go through is jury selection. There's all kinds of ways NOT to end up on the actual jury for the actual trial.

First we waited around for about an hour including watching a little video about how cool jury duty is. Then we all had to stand up one by one and introduce ourselves by answering a set of questions--are you married, do you have kids, are you a Utah native, what magazines do you regularly read, what's your favorite book/movie, etc. Then the attorneys and the people involved in the case introduced themselves to see if we had any affiliations with anyone that would affect our judgment of the case. Another hour to an hour and a half to get through all of those.

Next they took each person one by one into a private interview--I wish I knew what happened, but I never got to go in because they found 16 qualified people (meaning that they would be able to not be biased in the case). It still took about 2.5 hours to get through these interviews. I got to go home after that part, but I was kind of interested in seeing the whole process. The next step is for the attorneys to eliminate 4 people each ending up with 8 final jurors. All in all, I spent about 4 hours at the court house.

It really kind of felt like the movie Runaway Jury--it would be pretty hard to work the system to make sure that you get selected, but it's a movie so it works.