Why I didn't pull a Liz Lemon for jury duty

"I don't really think it's fair for me to be on a jury because I can read thoughts."

- 30 Rock's Liz Lemon (Tina Fey)

Fair warning: this is a little long. Several of my friends and students asked me to blog about my experience, and I promised to do so. (Y'all should comment so that I actually believe you read my blog!)

Back in November, I blogged about getting a summons for jury duty. It wasn't my most favorite Memphis experience ever, but it wasn't awful. I was thankful to be able to "choose" my time slot (they give you a chance to sign up for certain weeks, and I got my second preference), and was thankful that I had a friend serving the same week as me.

In December, I decided it would be wise and way cheaper to use Megabus instead of driving myself to Memphis and spending $100+ on gas. I booked a round-trip ticket for $15.50. (That's right: Atlanta to Memphis, Memphis to Atlanta for $15.50. If you travel, you really should check them out — they're legit, not sketchy, and the buses are clean and have outlets & free WiFi.) I worked it out to park at my friend Erin's house for the week, and she was graciously going to take me to the bus stop (you can't park your car there). Mom would pick me up Monday night, and was going to let me drive her car all week. She would take me back to the bus stop on Saturday morning, and Rachael would pick me up in Atlanta that afternoon, then I'd head back to Kennesaw. Simple.

That Monday was MLK Day. I had RUF staff meeting that morning, and was on the interstate just before noon. Typically, it takes me about 30-40 minutes to get to the bus stop, and my bus was leaving at 1:30. Assuming I didn't hit major traffic, I was going to be fine. But after five months of living this close to Atlanta, I should have known — never ever ever assume you're not going to hit major traffic. Leave way earlier than you need to — not just 45 minutes.

At 12:40, I exited the interstate and had three miles to drive to get to Erin's. I sat in traffic for 20 minutes because I had to drive right by an MLK center, and it was clearly having a program or something. When I got to Erin's, it was 1 p.m. We parked my car and headed out. We only had to go 2.3 miles to get to the stop, and Google Maps said there wasn't any traffic.

(Sometimes, Google Maps lies. I'm sure it's an accident, but it still happens.)

Low and behold, downtown Atlanta was packed. There was an MLK 5K that day, which caused lots of streets to be blocked off. Since the 5K was there, the Occupy Atlanta movement (still going strong here) had been moved a bit, causing more streets to be blocked off. (And no, Google Maps was still not showing any blinking red lines on the traffic maps. I checked.)

Erin was awesome, and kept driving until we found a way to get to the bus stop. Only problem — it was now 1:28. I jumped out of her car and ran up the first attendant I saw: "Is this the bus to Memphis?" The woman looked at me like I was nuts. "Nope." She pointed way down the street. "That one was."

Fail. I could still see the bus as it drove down the street. Fail.

Erin drove me back to her house, and I promptly got back into my car and drove myself to Memphis. So much for saving money on gas. (Don't worry about me spending money — see the end of this post.)

I arrived in Memphis that evening with no problems — just tired and not super happy with myself for missing the bus. Oh well. It was nice to see my parents, eat home cooked food, and watch TV on the couch before going to bed.

The next morning, I had to report at 8:30. I got up at 6:45 (ouch), ate, and had pulled out of my driveway by 7:35 — a little later than I had planned, but still good to go. I knew where I was going, and I knew where I wanted to park.

According to the radio, there were not one, not two, but THREE major accidents within a span of four miles from my house. My little easy 30 minutes-tops-straight-shot down Poplar turned into a nightmare. It took me 30 minutes to go about four miles — but after that, it was smooth sailing.

Almost.

So I'm literally a block from the Justice Center. I can see the building, I can see the expensive parking areas — I'm sitting at a red light at Danny Thomas and Poplar, and it's 8:12. I've cut it a little close, but I'm totally going to make it.

And then the light turns green. And then I hit the gas. And then ... my car won't go.

I almost burst into tears. For those of you who don't know me well — I am not a crier. (If you've ever seen me cry, it's because: 1. You're family. 2. You've seen me at a funeral. 3. You're a former roommate. 4. You worked with me at The Reflector during the 2010 spring semester. 5. You're someone I really love and trust. 6. A combination of the previous five statements.)

What did I do? Exactly what any girl does when something goes wrong — called Mom, then called Dad. Hands shaking, hazard lights flashing, wordlessly apologizing to everyone at the intersection, eyes watering uncontrollably, voice shaking over the phone — Mom graciously agreed to come meet me, but told me to call Dad to ask what to do with the car.

It's 8:21 and all I can think is, "They're totally putting out a bench warrant for me. They're filing contempt of court, and there's going to be a warrant for my arrest." Ridiculous, huh? (In all honesty, yes, they do this, but not if you're 15 minutes late. Duh.)

I called the justice department's secretary and informed her that my car had died, but I would be there as soon as I possibly could. Then I had the presence of mind to turn my car off and try restarting it.

Praise Jesus — it started right up, and I promptly pulled into the closest (and most expensive) parking lot I could find. There was $5 parking around the corner, but I didn't care — my car had made it into a parking lot, and I was not going to risk it dying again just to save $7.

I jogged past 201 Poplar (that's the infamous jail/criminal courthouse for all you non-Memphians, and good gracious, it is a sight to behold on a Tuesday morning after a long holiday weekend!) and jumped straight into a room of 400 other jurors. Not a seat to be found — oh well, no worries. That's what I get for being late.

Side note and slight rant here — not one man offered to give me his seat. In all honesty, I didn't mind; I'm 24 years old, healthy, and perfectly able to stand. (Good thing — those of us who were late ended up standing for almost three hours!) The thing that killed me was that many women came in right after me, and they were all older than me. One woman was on oxygen — and still not one man offered her his seat. To every healthy guy I know: If I ever see you do this, I'm revoking every single one of your man cards and you will not get them back. Ever. I'm serious. I know chivalry is not dead. I just spent five days in New York and (on several occasions) watched men offer their seats to women on crowded subways. Seriously guys — be a gentleman and offer the woman your seat, especially if she's over age 50 and especially if she's on oxygen!

OK, back to the jury duty tale. After three hours of listening to the commissioner, the rules, a judge thanking us for serving, lots of dumb questions (never ceases to amaze me what people want to know), and a roll call that took 20 minutes (it was hilarious to see adults trying to re-master this elementary skill), they started calling us for juries.

Guess who got called in the last round for criminal court, circuit 9?

"Oh, it's a criminal case, but it's probably just something little," I remember thinking as I followed the deputy.

After getting escorting upstairs and waiting for 30 minutes, the woman next to let out a low gasp. "Do you know who that is?" she whispered, pointing to a lawyer who had just exited our courtroom.

"No ma'am — I'm guessing a well-known lawyer?"

She whispered a name, looked at my confused face, and said, "He was one of Mary Winkler's lawyers!"

Uh oh. I suddenly had a sneaking suspicion that this case I was about to serve on wasn't going to be something little. (And if you're not familiar with Mary Winkler, in a nutshell: she shot & killed her husband, served a little time, and now has her three children back with her. I never cite Wikipedia, but in this cases, just read the Wikipedia entry for further details. It made national news, but I knew about it mainly because of all the Memphis/local attention.)

Three hours later (they gave us two hours for lunch, and we had to wait another hour), the deputy announced to our group of 40 that 14 of us had been randomly selected by the computer as the first potential jurors (12 jurors, 2 alternates).

Guess who was juror #7?

My juror badge. It's now serving me as a bookmark.

I filed into the courtroom and took my seat in the jury box. Besides one young man sitting behind two lawyers (I figured he was the accused, and it turns out that he was), I looked like I was the only one in my twenties. I tried not to fidget under the bright spotlights and tried to be still in the wooden swivel chair as the judge began to talk to all of us. (But hey, I had been in a car for 6.5 hours the day before, then spent 3 hours standing that morning. I don't think I was very still. Oh well.)

His voice took a deeper turn as he said the charges were very serious.

I had joked with people about what I would do if I found out it was a murder trial. Personally, I think it would be hilarious to pull a Liz Lemon — minus the whole "everything you say is under oath, so don't lie because we'll send you to jail." Yeah. I was not about to do that ... but good grief, I did not want to get sequestered! (30 Rock fans — the full 30 second video of Tina Fey is here.)

The case wasn't murder. It was rape, which, as the judge said, "Rape is next worse thing to murder. In some cases, it might even be worse."

Yikes. This is not what I wanted for my first jury duty.

The judge talked to us for about 20 minutes, and then the prosecution got up and talked to us. The prosecution was two female lawyers from the state — persuasive, pretty, and poised. (Like my cheesy alliteration? I couldn't resist. It was all true. I love the classiness and poise of female lawyers — ignore my sweeping generalization.) Two men made up the defense — and yes, one of those lawyers is a well-known Memphian who was one of Mary Winkler's lawyers! (He wasn't the one who had walked out earlier, but they're partners in the same firm.) The men weren't quite as charming — in fact, it was really hard to hear the main one when he spoke to us, and he looked really tired.

The judge and both sides asked us questions for at least an hour. We were all required to give our names, our occupations, if we had a significant other (spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend), what our significant other's occupation was, and how long we had been together. Both sides took turns asking us questions — some personal like, "Have you ever been directly affected by a sexual crime?" and "Have you had any significant trauma in your life? If so, please elaborate" and some not as personal like, "So, Ms. Whitten, you work with college-aged girls? Does your job involve a lot of listening and meeting with girls?"

Yeah, after answering that question with a definitive "yes," I figured I was getting kicked off the jury. Excellent.

The deputy gave each side a slip of paper to write down names for preemptory challenges. (This means that both sides get the chance to kick of jurors without saying why.) It took the defense a while to decide, but the prosecution was quick. The judge read out five names — and mine wasn't one of them.

Rats.

Then it got quiet again, and those of us still left on the stand tried to figure out what was going on ... oh, both sides had another piece of paper ... so there's a round two.

Apparently the prosecution wrote a big "0" because they were finished in all of five seconds. The defense took forever. That's when my curious/journalist brain started going: I looked at those of us left and noticed that I was the only woman left on the jury who had said, "Yes, I have a boyfriend." Hmm. That made me think it was a boyfriend/girlfriend case. Three of the five kicked off admitted to knowing the "famous" defense lawyer and/or had a family member who he had represented. A fourth juror who said she was probably going to sympathize with the victim was kicked off. (That's one foolproof way to get yourself kicked off a trial!) The fifth juror seemed visibly tired and her job involved lab reports/tox screens at a hospital — though she said she never worked with rape kits.

Then the judge called out my name and another woman's name.

Yesssssssss!

The prosecution lawyers looked at the two of us sadly as we walked out (I think they thought we would have been sympathetic to their client) and whispered, "Sorry. Thanks, ladies."

We waited outside the courtroom, and the deputy came back outside. "Good news. Y'all are good to go home. See you in ten years and thanks for doing your civic duty."

As I walked back to my car (which started right up!), I should have found myself pretty irritated over the fact that I paid $15.50 for a bus I missed, spent $65 on gas (so far — that was just one-way), had my car die, pay $12 for parking and $7 for lunch in the rain (jurors only get paid $11/day in Memphis), stood for three hours because I was late, get assigned to criminal court, and then almost get placed on a rape trial. Instead, I found myself laughing at the craziness of all of it and thanking Jesus that my car had died in Memphis that day and not the day before in the middle of nowhere Alabama or Mississippi.

Thanks to my car woes, I stayed in Memphis for a few days getting it repaired. $495 later, it is running great! (It had been revving occasionally for months ... it doesn't do that anymore. Excellent.) And don't worry about the money for the repair and gas— my RUF account is healthy and has an emergency fund, so we are good to go. I will not be forced to eat ramen and crackers for the next month. (Have I mentioned RUF takes really good care of us? They do.)

Moral of this story? If you move states (or move somewhere else in your state), change your address, but also change your car tags and driver's license. If you don't, you are legally bound to show up for jury duty! (I didn't change mine because I'm trying to keep Tennessee residency — so yes, I totally deserved having to serve this time.)

There you have it — my jury duty epic novel. Here's to hoping I don't get summoned for federal court anytime soon.