On the 28th of October, I received a summons to report for Jury Duty at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.  I was to be “on call” for a two week period running from 10 November 2006 through 24 November 2006.

To find out whether you had to report to the Courthouse, you had to call a 1-800 number after 6:00 PM and enter your Juror ID Number. You were either told to report to the Courthouse on a particular day or were given a date to call in again.  On Friday, November 10th, I was instructed to be present in the Jury Assembly room at the Courthouse no later than 8:45 AM the following Monday or bad things would happen to me.  So on Monday, off I went.

So, Monday, I, and about 75 to 100 or so other upstanding citizens who reside in the US Court’s Eastern District of Virginia appeared in the Jury Assembly Room.  If course everybody was really “happy” to be there to do their civic duty, especially the poor guy who had to drive 73 miles one-way to get there.  I was fortunate in that I could take the DC Metro from Vienna to the King Street Station in Alexandria and take a 10 minute walk to the courthouse.

We were checked in and then told there were two trials scheduled to begin that day; one civil and one criminal.  The civil trail required six jurors and two alternates; the criminal trial required 12 jurors and two alternates.  The court clerk in charge of the assembly room told us one trial would last three to four days and one trial would last three weeks or longer.  But he wouldn’t tell us which of the two would last three weeks (duh, guess which one!).

We then sat and waited for the phone to ring, telling the clerk that prospective jurors were needed in a courtroom.  Once this occurred, the clerk pulled up 24 names at random,one of them being mine.  We were then told which courtroom to report to.  Once we were in the courtroom and seated, the court clerk gave us the oath and then proceeded to assign “juror numbers” at random.  I ended up as “Juror 18.”  The first 14 jurors were then instructed by the judge to take seats in the jury box.  They were then assigned new Juror Numbers based on where they were sitting, i.e., first row, first seat Juror #1, first row second seat Juror #2,…Juror #14.  The judge then explained that this would be a civil trial needing six jurors and two alternates, and, that the case was about “defamation” and that there were two kinds of defamation (written is libel; spoken is slander).  He then had the lawyers introduce themselves and their clients.  Next he asked each of the 14 jurors the jury box a series of questions:

• their name
• where they lived and for how long
• their education level
• what kind of work they did
• if they were married
• if they had any children, how many, and their ages
• if they had any relatives who were lawyers
• if they or any members of their family had ever been involved in a defamation suit.

The judge and lawyers then had a “sidebar” conversation. The judge then told three of the people in the jury box that they were dismissed and free to leave.  So the next three jurors from the pool took their place in the jury box (i.e., #15, #16, #17).  They,in turn, were asked the same set of questions.  The lawyers were give some time to talk among themselves and then had another sidebar with the judge.   As a result, one more juror was excused, which meant it was my turn in the box (I became the new Juror #4).  I was asked and answered the questions and again the lawyers an judge had a sidebar.  As a result, Juror #1 and Juror #4 (yours truly) were dismissed.  So there you have it…my day at the courthouse.

I can’t honestly say I was disappointed about getting dismissed, but on the other hand, for a few minutes I was little disappointed that I did not have the chance to sit on the jury…but that disappeared real fast.