Several weeks ago, yours truly got summoned for Memphis jury duty.
I know what you're thinking: "No big deal! You live in Atlanta now."
Yes ... however, I haven't changed my residency. When I first moved, I didn't know if I'd want to stay in Georgia for a while, and I was still thinking about grad school in Tennessee. Having lived in Georgia for four months now, I know that I like it, but I'm still not sure if I should try to change my residency. It's just easier to keep it in Tennessee, right? — until you get called for jury duty.
I got my summons several weeks ago and spent about a week and a half calling the office to try to see if I'd be exempt. I wasn't able to get hold of anyone, so I drove 6.5 hours on Thursday to get home to Memphis. (To clarify; I'm OK with serving, and I'm not trying to get out of it. I just wanted to see if I could sign up for a slot without coming home three days early, or if I was somehow exempt because I live out of state.) I'm just glad it was close to Thanksgiving, and I'm thankful my boss was understanding about me having to come home this early.
Reporting for duty was ... an experience. It should have taken me about 35 minutes to get downtown from my house; it took me an hour and 15 minutes. Thankfully, I wasn't late, but I was certainly frazzled.
There are some interesting characters in my hometown — I already knew that. When I entered the room of 5,000 potential jurors, I headed to the back and seated myself. Little did I know I'd be close to a woman who yelled at the judge to "Shut up!" when he greeted us at 9:15 with a cheery "Good morning!" I also didn't know I'd be sitting close to a man who was telling everyone that he couldn't serve because he didn't have a driver's license "due to a run-in with the law," but "they're still gonna make me serve! My buddy served last year on a case, and one of the other jurors was a murderer!" Oh boy.
I made it through jury selection unscathed, and even got my second preferred time slot. Apparently, Shelby County is the only place that allows jurors to select the week that they serve — whew! I'm very thankful for that.
I'm sure I'll have some great stories/meet some great characters when I report back in January for my week. Should be interesting.
2 comments:
My roommate just served in Charleston County and she didn't even have to sit on a Jury. She just called in every day to see if they needed her. They didn't!
Sadly, Memphis makes you show up every day until they put you on a case or dismiss you completely. I wish we could call in, but oh well. At least I'll have some good stories...
Post a Comment