Jury Duty

A month ago I received a jury duty summons in the mail.  Hubby could hardly wait for me to walk in the door and show me my mail as he's been called in three times in the eight years we've lived here.  They'd never caught up with me until this year.  He was tickled pink.  Not one to sit around and wait for jury duty to find me, I did have other things planned for the week they wanted me.  Namely work.  I called and was deferred until this week. 

My group was one of twelve they required to show up at the courthouse this morning.  That comes to about 200 jurors, the clerk of the court informed us at our orientation, for three trials.  At said orientation we watched a film narrated by Bill Kurtis, a native Kansan and nationally known tv journalist.  He gave a history of the courthouse (built in 1965 for four million dollars) and described what would take place during a trial including how a jury is chosen, terminology we might encounter (objection!), their expectations of jurors and what an honor it is to serve as a juror.

Judges serving this courthouse also contributed and one comment in particular stuck me the wrong way.  He was talking about how nice it is that they can call all of these citizens to be a jury for their peers; to weigh the facts and decide innocence or guilt.  The sentence that irritated me was the one where he said something close to this:  It doesn't matter if you're a doctor, an engineer, an attorney or a common laborer, you are all the same as jurors.  This smacks of elitism.  "Common laborer."  Just what is that?  The retired Goodyear employee I heard visiting with the guy next to him?  The Walgreens employee there in his work shirt?  The grandmother that was reporting for jury duty instead of taking her grandchildren to work?  Or me?  The office manager at a university.  While I appreciate those who take their education to a higher level, they are not better in any way than a "common laborer". 

As it turns out, they sent a third of us home before we even received assigned seating in the courtroom.  The attorneys for the case I was on the jury panel for had their days mixed up and thought their trial was to begin tomorrow.  Hmmm...even this common laborer got her facts straight and showed up on the right day.