Orange County Resident Bombs Out on Federal Jury Duty(Federal Juror #03-0117 or was it Federal Prisoner #03-0117?)

It usually isn't good news when you receive a large envelope from the Federal Government so it was with great trepidation that I opened the envelope with a return address of "United States Federal Court". My first thought was "Damn, I'm busted". But for what? I could think of about 1000 things that I could be busted for, but was also pretty good at concealing my sub-legal activities(most of which happen behind closed doors in the safety of my home). I felt a lump growing in my throat not unlike the reaction I had when my girlfriend first told me she was pregnant.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized I wouldn't be pulling 30 years in prison, but instead would be in a position to maybe send someone else to prison for 30 years who may have committed the same acts that I did. I wondered if the God(s) or The Federal Government would look kindly on me for taking that criminal off the street- would it absolve me of my crimes? Logically, it didn't seem a whole lot different than turning stooge on someone- either way we save ourselves by sending someone else behind bars.

I looked at the dates they wanted me to serve. "Oh Darn!", I thought to myself. "I'm going to be in Greece then and my tickets were purchased long ago". I called the court and sure enough they thought I had a valid reason to not serve on the Jury. All I would had to do was send a letter explaining my reason and they would let me go. And that they did! I congratulated myself for getting out of an hour drive twice a day to get to the Federal Courthouse in Greensboro which I envisioned lasting a year and half, even though the deputy Court Clerk assured me that most trials only last 3-5 days maximum. She could try to comfort me all she wanted but until my friend Dale Akiki had been put on trial in San Diego, they too had never had a trial that lasted a year and a half either!

It was only after reading the complete letter that I realized that I hadn't avoided my fate, just postponed it for a few months. I was now scheduled to serve on January 19, 2009. I tried to think about other reasons not to serve but I couldn't come up with anything. It also dawned on me that trying a series of excuses until I found the one that final got me off jury duty forever would probably be recognized as a sign by the authorities that I was trying to get out of jury duty- and I'm sure they could play hardball much harder than I could. Just like the cop that pulls you over for doing 75 in a 25, I wanted these people to be my friends!

The procedure to find out if you're going to serve is pretty easy. You call in on the Sunday before the Monday that you are going to serve and an automated response gives you instructions. Of course that is if you're not using Vonage telephone service. If you're using Vonage then you get a recorded message saying "You cannot call this number from your calling area". If you really want to get out of jury duty then you say "oh well, they gave me the wrong number" and forget about the whole thing. On the other hand, if a little part of you says "I'm not sure they'll go for that", then you try to call the out of state number. Luckily for me, my Vonage account gives me toll-free calls to every place in the US, including Greensboro, North Carolina.

I dialed the "336" number and sure enough it rang and I heard a general jury instruction message and then they asked me to put in my 9 digit jury number. I put in the number in a waited..... the recorded message asked me to put the number in again and I did.... and waited...."Good-bye" said the machine.

To be honest I really wasn't excited about serving on the jury, but the thought of being arrested for not showing up for my duty was even more daunting. To me, the idea of hiding from the Federal Marshals for 20 years didn't seem like a good alternative to avoiding jury duty so I went through my drawer of obsolete electrical/computer equipment and found my old non-electric phone and plugged it in. Presto.... a message and it accepted my jury number. And even better than that I was told that I would not be needed on July 19th. "Yiiiipppppeeeeeee. I'm off, finished... done with it! Damn, that was easy!"...... "but call again on January 25th to receive reporting instructions for January 26th".

I suppose I jumped the gun. In retrospect to think that anything would be that easy with the Federal Government is a fantasy, so I resigned myself to the fact that I still might have to serve.

On Friday, January 23, I came home and had a message on my voice mail saying that I would not have to serve on January 26.... Another reprieve!!.... I felt like a prisoner on Death Row who has had his sentence commuted.......... "but call back on February 1....". Once again, I wasn't off the hook.

On January 31, once again I had a message on my voice mail. This time it said I would be needed but I was required to call on Sunday just to make sure that my instructions hadn't changed. So the bad news was that I was called to serve, the good news was that they may change their mind again.

In the back of my mind, I was hoping I wouldn't serve, but I decided that I'd better start preparing myself for the worst. To do that I had to find something positive to focus on. After scouring the pages of literature and pamphlets they sent me I found a few things that could actually be called positive. I would get paid $40 a day(that's not bad, it's been a long time since I worked for $5 an hour). I would get 48 cents per mile for driving(with about a 100 mile round trip that was another $48- getting better). Then I saw that they would put me up in a hotel and pay for meals if I lived more than 50 miles away(wow- a paid vacation on the US Government- Greensboro- there must be something to do there when it's not baseball season. Maybe I could bring my family and we could have a nice family vacation. They could go shopping while I sat on the jury). Mission accomplished- I'd found enough things to turn a possibly devastating week into a paid and/or family holiday. I could live with that.

I called on February 1 and sure enough, they wanted me. I put together my little pile of personal belongings I would need and left them on my desk so that I could grab them on the way out the door the next morning- Jury postcard, driving instructions and my Greek lesson book, as I had heard rumors that you have a lot of free time when you're waiting around to picked for the jury.(Yes, I still wasn't selected to serve as a juror- I'd only been selected to be part of a group of which some would be selected to serve).

At 6am the next morning my alarm clock went off and I ran through my usual morning rituals- get dressed, eat breakfast, brush my teeth and check my e-mail. When I checked my e-mail about the worst thing that could have happened... did. I received an e-mail from a client saying their e-mail wasn't working and when I checked mine... the same thing. I had 30 minutes to get the e-mail on my server working before I disappeared into the black hole of jury duty, not knowing when I would reemerge.

I contacted my technicians and they went to work, but it looked like the problem wasn't going to be solved before I left. Having already accepted that I was going to have to serve my jury duty, I was resolved to going through with it- until this e-mail problem emerged. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I would want someone sitting on a jury that was wishing that he was home fixing a technical problem that could destroy his business if left unattended to. I began to wonder if that would be a legitimate reason for not showing up at the courthouse. I could see myself explaining to the Federal Marshals when they came to arrest me that "I had a good reason not to show up. I was having a technical problem with my business!". I didn't think that would work so I crossed my fingers, walked out to the car and headed out towards Greensboro, rationalizing that if I lost my business, my house, everything I owned and ended up homeless on the street, at least it would be for a good cause and I would still be recognized as an exemplary citizen doing his duty. Just that thought warmed the deep patriotic fervor that was laying dormant somewhere after eight years of watching my country slowly and systematically dismantled.

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