Dear DeKalb County:
I’m intrigued and impressed by your jury processing. I guess with a population of 752,088, you need to have your act together.
On Monday, I arrived at the courthouse as Juror 401 of 1,001 called. That’s a shocking number. In my experience in Chatham County, I had to call every night to see if my number was up the next day.
Not y’all.
You call everyone in.
Judges and attorneys get one day to make a decision to field a jury. And that’s genius because it puts pressure on people to settle.
While I waited to see if I was chosen (and by the way, I am NEVER chosen), I had the pleasure <sarcasm alert> of sitting between two of the kinds of people I hate: A guy watching videos with no headphones and a woman talking loudly on her phone.
Why, Sir? Why must you torture me?
The other people in the room were sitting quietly. But I was sandwiched between these two.
And the guy sat RIGHT NEXT TO ME, even though there were dozens of empty spaces all over the room. He was so close, I could smell his chicken-biscuit breath. I had to move down one chair.
It happens all the time. I can be in an empty movie theater, and the only other person will sit one seat over.
Why don’t people understand personal space?
[Insert deep cleansing breath.]
I’m not sure this is common practice, but it was surprising to me that one of the judges emerged to test out what he thought was a rousing stand-up routine.
It was, predictably, about civic duty and, unpredictably, the importance of driving under the speed limit.
At least my seat neighbors silenced themselves for the occasion.
A little while later, I was dismissed. My case was settled while I was seething.
But that part was not your fault, DeKalb County. You made the process as painless as possible.
See you in two years!
Beth
Observe and report 