The Superior Court of Fulton County Georgia excused standby jurors in Jury Pool Group 28 from service today. This information is not a secret, the court informed callers via their automated message yesterday beginning at 5:00 PM. Even as I made my way to downtown this morning (an hour and fifteen minute trek) and arrived on time at 8:00 AM, I knew the standby jurors in Group 28 were excused. What I did not know was I was a standby juror, and I didn’t need to be there at all.
The jury summons has a box labeled Standby Status. When you’re selected to be a standby juror, they place an X in the box. There was no X in the box on my summons, so I interpreted this to mean I was not a standby juror. I left my house at 6:45 AM in order to make the 7:16 AM North Springs MARTA train. This would put me at the Five Points station at 7:45 AM – plenty of time to walk two and half blocks to the Justice Center Tower.
When I arrived, I was asked to surrender my Canon PowerShot SD700 IS at the front guard gate and metal detector. I guess this is for security, but they strangely didn’t care about my Sony HDR-TG1 HD camcorder, which is probably a far greater threat if they’re concerned about pictures of the inside reaching the outside. I hadn’t planned to take pictures or recordings while in the courthouse, but I did want them handy en route.
As soon as I checked in to the Jury Pool, I was informed I could leave. I wasn’t there seven seconds. It turns out they forgot to put an X in the Standby Status box. Fulton County has a serious problem getting anyone to actually show up for Jury Duty. Roughly half of the people summoned don’t report. Sadly, those who obey the law are the ones who paid the price today. Fulton County wasted a lot of people’s time today by not letting anyone know about the missing X. My employer is fantastic, but I can’t imagine the hardship of someone losing a paid day. Sure, you always find something else to do, but that’s not the point. They could have easily mentioned the X-File in yesterday’s daily recording.
As I left the courthouse, I decided to make the most of my reclaimed time. Downtown Atlanta has services you just can’t find in Alpharetta.
1 comments:
Hilarious. Keep up the great posts!
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