The first day - into the pool

One of the reasons I was interested in being a juror this year is that 4 or 5 years ago I had also received a summons but was in one of the groups whose service wasn't needed.  I never even made it down to the courthouse or the jury parking lot.  

Of course I never really enjoy driving downtown so I was pleased to see that the prime parking lot is on the northwest corner of the city.  It's really convenient to Carmichael.  The drawback is that the lot usually fills up by 8:00 each morning.  Thus if you're in a court which starts at 9:00 you have a choice of getting there an hour early or traveling to one of the alternate sites.

I worried about being on time my first day.  I needn't have.  Although they started registering potential jurors 30 minutes before we needed to be there, there was still a line 45 minutes later.  Registering consisted of having your summons or your badge scanned so they would know that somewhere in the process you had actually been on site.  Believe it or not, only a hour after I registered there were 3 people missing.  

When you checked in you were also asked to complete a one-page, 4 copy questionnaire with basic questions about your connection to law, legal systems, police, crime, and your career choices.  I'll explain later how these answers were  used to select a jury.

I would guess there were probably about 100 of us potential jurors concentrated in the two jury assembly rooms but also scattered through various hallways and waiting rooms on the second floor.  We were informed that we now constituted the "jury pool" and may be in and out of that pool several times in the day.  However, if we were in the pool at the end of the day, our jury service would be over for another 18 months.  

We then watched a 9 minute film about the importance of juries in our system of democracy.  In case you'd like to watch the clip without getting called to jury duty here is the link.  Judge Van Camp (star of the film) even favored us with a personal visit and further explanation of how important jurors are.