Jury duty

Ronnie was called for jury selection on Tuesday. It was her first time to be summoned since she moved down here to live with me. Several months ago, I advised her not to register to vote so she wouldn’t be summoned. It was after the presidential election so I figured she had at least 2 years before anything big was on the ballot again. Seemed like a good idea to me at the time. That worked for a little while until the peach of a lady down at the DMV took it upon herself to register Ronnie while she was renewing her driver’s license. Prior to the 2008 presidential election I bit the bullet and changed my voter’s registration to Edwards County so I wouldn’t have to drive to San Angelo to vote. It has been about a year now since I did this. Since then I have been summoned 3 times for Edwards County and once for Tom Green. You might be thinking that I have extraordinarily bad luck, but where most people see jury duty as a horrible waste of time or at the very least a disruption to normal life, I have begun to embrace the frequent letters from the wonderful folks at Edwards County. However, haven’t always felt this way...

The first time I was summoned I had the same sense of dread that everyone gets when they receive their summons in the mail. So on the selected day I made the 30 mile drive to Rocksprings and sat in a tiny little un-air conditioned courthouse all day in one of those old wooden fold-down seats that were probably all the rave around the turn of last century when the average grown man was somewhere around 5’4” and weighed all of 130 lbs. and had narrow seat, but these days very few of the potential jurors fit comfortably or at all. The whole air conditioning thing I not sure about. They may have air conditioning, but for the sake of this story please picture me sweating profusely. I must admit that things are maybe a little slower and more relaxed at our courthouse than most. No one got in a hurry, the mood was very relaxed, most carried on conversations with one another throughout the ordeal, we all whispered comments to each other about the “big city lawyer”, and the best part of all I got to spend the day with two of my neighbors who I rarely get to see.

See when you live in a rural county with almost no people, the chances of serving on a jury selection with at least a couple of your friends or neighbors is pretty likely. In my everyday life when I do run across a neighbor we visit for a minute and then go our separate ways, and we always say “tell your wife/husband hi for me,” and then we usually say “we need to get together more often” or “we need to have ya’ll over some night” or “stop in if your ever around.” It usually goes something like that anyway, but then we get all caught up in everyday life and never get around to having them over for supper. So for us anyway, jury duty provides us with the opportunity to catch up. I mean what else are you going to do while sitting in a cramped seat all day long next to a buddy. So when you get a jury summons in the mail and are expecting the worst just to find out you get to spend the entire day catching up with friends you haven’t seen in awhile its a pleasant surprise.

Like I said before, Ronnie got the opportunity to make the drive to Rocksprings this past Tuesday. She lucked out in that the courthouse proceedings have moved across the street from the old courthouse to the new annex building with air conditioning. She went in, sat down, and guess what..? A wonderful friend of ours, who we haven’t seen in awhile, also had jury duty that same day! All in all Ronnie’s first experience with a jury summons went fairly well. Of course, things at the court moved painfully slow, they traded in the small old wooden seats for some painful church pews, she only made a whopping $6 for her troubles, but on the bright side, she was able to spend the day with a friend she hasn’t seen in awhile and she even made some new friends.
Colin