Objection! Relevance?

Yesterday, I went in to serve my civic duty aka Jury Duty. This was my third time on jury duty. During my first service I rode in an elevator with Jon Voight. Yes, even celebrities have to serve. He's incredibly tall, by the way.

This time, the worst thing about jury duty was how they brought in some judge to give us a pep talk, and it went on for fifteen minutes. Those fifteen minutes could have been used for some valuable sleep this morning. But no. Some guy has to talk about a quote. A famous, beautiful quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Lovely. Fine. I swear he said that quote at least ten times, I wish I would’ve kept track.

But this speech was bad. I mean, if this was being graded in college, it should’ve gotten a D. If you start out with such a beautiful quote, shouldn’t that be what your spiel is backing up? This guy was talking about how great the court system was in the 60’s. Look at what we did for Rosa Parks, and the Million Man March. And then we rewound even further and went back to Susan B. Anthony and how the courts ruled against her, but never made her pay the fine, so that made it okay and women eventually won the right to vote. Um, okay.

No mention of California’s moral universe bending toward justice until the Japanese internment camps during WWII were brought up. One of the prisoners sued and the court ruled against him. But decades later the case was revisited and it was determined that the internment camps were a gross violation of human rights, therefore he was vindicated. Yeah, I’m sure his ancestors are just peachy.

And then he started quoting “To Kill a Mockingbird” and I almost got the giggles. This was the worst pep talk ever! This guy is a judge. He could’ve told us one cool anecdote from his career about how he personally saw justice served, and we would’ve sat up, ears perked. Some people may have even woken up. Instead, we got a strange look-how-the-courts-have-made-race-relations-so-much-better by referring to the 60’s and conveniently failing to mention Rodney King or O.J. Simpson. There’s an arc for you.

I’ve been watching way too much “The Good Wife” lately, and had a feverish urge to stand up and object on the grounds of relevance. None of this speech was supporting the MLK quote or why we were there or what purpose we were serving. The quote was just a convenient ploy for him to use.

He left the room to tepid applause.

After that we were given instructions on how to “duck and cover” by a man who was barely literate. Remember when you were learning to read and each word in the sentence was pronounced separately until you became good enough at reading that the words flowed together into sentences? Well, this guy was still at the stage where every word was an accomplishment. He wasn’t reading as sentences, because when he finished the sentence you could see it click, what the sentence in its entirety meant, and then he’d go back and correct the words that he’d misread. Painful. There are so many unemployed people in L.A. Could someone who can actually read please hold the job that involves the reading-out-loud? Thank you.

Then we were left to wait for panels to be called. I've never heard so much snoring in a public place before. Red-eye transatlantics couldn’t hold a candle to that chorus.

The best part of jury duty is lunch due to the courthouse's proximity to the Grand Central Market. I had an amazing broccoli and cheese pupusa from Sarita's Pupusaria. Their pupusa is the best corn tortilla I've ever had stuffed with broccoli and cheese, topped with pickled cabbage, and served with a sweet vinegar sauce. So good. Then I had some ice cream. As I was leaving someone was holding a man against a wall and yelling for security with a crowd gathered. I think he was suspected of stealing something, but I couldn't tell what.

Back to the courthouse for a long afternoon of sitting. I was never called for any of the panels. At four we were released. Appropriately, the person who read the end of the day role call was the man who couldn't read. He read the name "Marianne" and pronounced her last name in syllables that I couldn't understand. No one said "here" and he didn't repeat the name. A young woman piped up, "Is it Mariana?" Yes, it was, even though that's not what he said. "If it sounds like you, then it's you!" Yelled the woman who'd been running the Jury Duty Show all day. Why she wasn't reading the role call, I don't know. I felt bad for Mariana. I wouldn't have responded to a first name that wasn't mine and an indecipherable last name either.

He had no problem with my name, though, and I was outta there. Justice served.