Jury Duty

Most of you probably was wondering what happened to me since I was not online yesterday. I went to sleep early as I was supposed to serve as a juror in our courthouse in the morning. I went to sleep at 3 A.M. but tossed and turned and fell asleep at about 5 A.M. in the morning. I got up at 7:30 A.M. and promptly got ready and left for the courthouse.

Since I was visiting an area I have never frequented, I checked my local map book for the location of the courthouse. I have been searching for 5 minutes when I spotted on the map a courthouse. To make the story short, I had 1 hour to get to the courthouse since I was told it is a 20 minutes drive, I thought I had plenty of time. I would be working on my webpage on my laptop while waiting for the jury to be assembled and presented to the judge.

First off, the courthouse, well what I presumed as the courthouse on the map turned out to be a movie theatre. I stopped, asked direction and a young lady pointed me to what I would later find out to be the city hall. So for the second time I asked direction and I was finally given the right address of the courthouse. Since I arrived when the court was just starting it's morning session, the parking lot was full. I ended up parking at the farthest spot away from the courthouse so I walked briskly to the building's entrance.

When I entered the building, right in front, three deputy sheriffs were checking people for weapons, scanning their bags and making the people walked through a metal detector. I placed my bag on the x-ray scanner and promptly taken off all metal objects from my body. I was waved as okay but when I try to retrieve my bag, I was told that my bag contained a weapon and they ask me to produce it from my bag. I showed them a folding knife that I stuffed in my bag a year ago and forgot since that time. I also produced a can of pepper spray and another folding tool with a plier attachement. I was told that I can't enter the courthouse and I have to go back to my truck and leave my knife and pepper spray in my truck. I complied walking back all the way to the end of the parking lot and leaving my knife and spray in the glove box.

I then returned to the courthouse entrance and went to the ritual of removing all metal objects and placing them on a tray at the table separating the entrance and the lobby of the courthouse next to the metal detector. As I was about to walked through the metal detector, one of the deputy sheriff noticed that I have a small pen knife on my keychain. He told me that I have to go back to my truck to secure my pen knife since any type of pointed object is not allowed in the courthouse. I made a second trip to my truck and to make sure I did not have to go back again, I removed all metallic object from my body and any possible weapon from my bag.

The third time was a charm since I passed the inspection with flying color. I proceeded to the fourth floor and went to the Jury Assembly Room. There I was told that I was late and they can't use me now since the potential jurors are being instructed already and I have missed a good portion of the instructions. I left the building after 10 minutes of entering it. I will let you know how it turns out. At least, now I know where the courthouse is located and also not to bring my knives into the courthouse again. It can only happen to me..LOL..=)

February 6, 2001
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The story was moved here from my website.