• When a judge gives you an hour for lunch, and 4 of the 45 people in your jury pool decide to not return at all, it makes His Honor a bit testy.
• It is not a wise thing to come back from lunch smelling like a distillery.  But at least you came back.
• It is easy to spot the jurors who are normally working on salary and those who are normally under a union contract.  The jurors who work for a set salary are used to staying until the job gets done.  The union people start to get itchy at hour 5, and get downright irate at hour 7 if they believe they will have to stay late.
• When during the jury selection process the defense counsel plays the race card, you know it’s going to be a long day.
• For some reason I’m not surprised that I’ve told the defense counsel in two criminal jury selections that one of the local prosecutors and I are acquaintances and that his brother is godfather to my children and on both occasions I haven’t been chosen for the jury.
• Listening to some of the people who are serving with me reminds me of how lucky I am to have a boss and co-workers who are willing to take up the slack when things like this come up.  I’ve been at the courthouse for three straight days, and will be spending half of tomorrow there as well.  The clerk tells me that’s about par for the course, and I should expect the same thing next week.  The boss and my team seem to be taking it all in stride.
• Amazingly enough, a lot of lawyers seem to be willing to settle when they hear that the jury pool is on its way up.

Today was day one of jury duty.  I will be doing it for the next couple of weeks.  Today was orientation, paperwork, and all that.  Here are some things that popped into my head:

• The deputy sheriffs that work at the courthouse wear their pistols on their strong side and their Tazers on their weak side with the butt of the Tazer facing forward for a cross draw.  Never noticed any of the police on the street carrying them like that, but it makes sense.  If you train to cross draw for less lethal, you’re less likely to mistakenly draw your sidearm and shoot someone.
• Some people confuse a jury duty summons with a license to ask ignorant questions.  Seriously, how many times does the nice lady have to say “No, we don’t provide free parking.” and “You need to be able to serve every day for the next two weeks.” before people figure out that they’re going to have to pay to park and that they need to ready to come to the courthouse every day for the next two weeks?
• The instructions say “Call the hotline after 6 PM every week night to find out if you need to come to the courthouse the next day.” That means that when Mickey’s big hand is on the 12 and his little hand is on the 6, you can pick up Mr. Telephone and dial in seven numbers.  A nice person will have left a message telling you if you need to come the next morning.  It doesn’t mean ask the clerk three times if you have to come tomorrow while the rest of us want to get on with the day.
• When the form says “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?”, if you have ever been convicted of a felony, you mark yes, even if it happened in 1989.  Sorry, those tend to be for life.  To his credit, the man who asked this seemed pissed that he wouldn’t be able to be on a jury, which shows that he may have gotten his act together enough that he wants to do some civic duty in the last two decades.
• To the genius who thought to put a public wi-fi hotspot in the jury waiting area, bless you.  Tomorrow the laptop goes to the courthouse with me.
• As much as I love a good page turner, taking Hard Magic to read through the boring parts of the day might have been a bad decision.  I read through it in about 3 hours, and then I had nothing to read.  Maybe Larry Correia could write a really long book for people who need something that lasts six to eight hours.  In the meantime, I need to bring something that is less enjoyable to read.  I need to find something in the sweet spot of interesting enough to want to read but not so good that I rip through it.
• When we were being taken by randomly selected groups to jury selection for several cases, the clerk would read off our juror numbers.  She asked that we say “Here!” or something so that she knew she was sending the right people to the right judges.  After the 10th or so person who didn’t say anything and didn’t move when called, I could almost hear her think “Pay attention and sound off like you’ve got a pair!” just like Drill Sergeant Decker used to.  The people who work in the jury office don’t get paid enough.
• Sitting within earshot of the clerk and muttering “This is bull****!” and “When can I go home?” over and over as you wait to be called to a jury pool isn’t going to make this any easier on you and is going to make life fun for the clerk if you ever need them to do something for you.