Last week, I received a summons to report for jury duty on December 3. It had been mailed about a week earlier to my old address, but lucky for me, our mail forwarding is still in effect. The notice gave very few details about what to expect - it just told me to report to a certain address at 9AM. It also included a list of disqualifying factors for jury selection (such as being a convicted felon).
I decided to visit the website listed to find out more information. Unhelpfully, it only directed me to the Shelby County homepage, rather than the specific page for the jury commission. Go ahead, click on that last link there and see how...helpful...the webpage is. You'll notice a section entitled "Frequently Asked Questions" with no following text. Apparently no one has any questions about being on a jury!
The main question I had was: Can I please defer my service until my infant twins are a bit older? I decided to call the number listed. Well, it seems they only have one phone line or something because I literally called 20 times and got a busy signal before I finally got through. The lady who answered told me that on 12/3, I was simply coming to select a week to serve in the future, and it wouldn't take more than 1.5 hours that day. They also told me if I wanted to select a week perhaps in April or later, that would be no problem. They seemed unsympathetic to my situation as the primary caregiver of two babies.
Luckily, my husband had a couple vacation days he still needed to use up before the end of the year and was able to take the day off to stay home with the kids. So this morning, I drove downtown as instructed. (Sidebar: I don't think I've been downtown in almost a year!) I thought maybe there'd be a garage with free parking for jurors, but no such luck. I had to pay $10 to park in a lot across the street. Upon entering the juror room, I was shocked to see like 400 people there! And I found out there were 4 sessions today (9AM/11AM/1PM/3PM) so that means approximately 1200 people had to deal with this interruption in their regularly scheduled life today.
Promptly at 9AM, the meeting began, and I was done by 10AM. The Commissioner was professional and courteous in explaining the process, and I'm sure she's doing the best she can, but seriously Shelby Co., YOUR JURY SELECTION PROCESS IS EXTREMELY OUTDATED AND INEFFICIENT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY!
We were told that they're in the process of developing an online juror system. Oh lucky me, I got selected for the analog version. After the Commissioner told us about the required court dress code (no shorts, no tank tops) and a judge came by to give us a juror oath, we were allowed to pick our week of service. They offered 5 weeks (Jan 4-Feb 1). When they read off the week you wanted, you stood up, got in a line, and handed in your summons in exchange for a card with your assigned dates. After they took volunteers for those 5 weeks, the rest of us got in line to request an alternate week at a later date. I'm assuming they also were accepting documentation from people who weren't able to serve at all, but I left once I got my date.
Want to know how this could be better?
1) Online system. Obviously, they already know this and are working on it, but seriously it's almost 2016 and they don't have it yet???
2) Don't let people pick their week. It is such a huge waste of time to make everyone show up for an hour just to pick a later week of service. The Commissioner was touting the "pick your week" system as a good thing for Shelby Co., like they are offering great customer service. But it makes the process unnecessarily complicated. Just assign people a week, and if they have a conflict, let them object/reschedule.
3) Add some FAQs to the website
4) Offer childcare
5) Give free parking or parking validation, and bus passes for people who don't drive
6) Increase the jury commission's budget to make 1, 4 & 5 possible. (HA HA that's never going to happen in Shelby Co. where the only things the gov't wants to fund are police and fire departments)
For comparison's sake, here is what happened nearly a decade ago when I was summoned for jury duty in Washington DC.
-A few weeks in advance, I received a notice in the mail.
-The notice included detailed instructions for what to do.
-I was assigned 3 days to call in the night before, enter my code, and find out if I needed to report the following morning.
-As instructed, I called each night. I wasn't needed, so I never had to go anywhere or miss work/school for an unnecessary scheduling meeting!
I'll post Part II of this series after I serve my week, but that won't be until June so don't sit around obsessively refreshing your screen :)
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