Two days before I left on vacation I got a letter in the mail from Jury Management.
Sh*t. I open it up and as I expected I was being summoned for jury duty in April, one of my busiest months at work.
Double sh*t.
I was stressed. It was literally the last thing I wanted to do, especially if it was going to cause me extra hours of work on the weekend to catch up. I scoured the Internet for reasons to get out of jury duty and sadly I did not meet the criteria for any of them.
When I started telling people I was selected for jury duty I realized that people actually thought I was
lucky. They
wanted to be chosen for jury duty. Maybe, just maybe, I should start looking at this summons as a privilege.
An adventure.
My summon was for April 14th at 9:15am and as instructed, I called the afternoon at 3pm where it was confirmed that jury selection would proceed as planned.
I had never been to the courthouse before but thankfully it is only a short 5 minute walk from my office. I had to go through a security scanner like at the airport before heading to the courtroom on the 18th floor. I had no idea what to expect. As I stepped into the courtroom, it was already full of other prospective jurors.
It was overwhelming.
I barely found a spot to sit. I estimate that there was about 200 people there.
The criteria for jury duty was drilled into us over and over:
1. Are you a Canadian citizen?
Check.
2. Are you an Alberta resident?
Check.
3. Are you over 18?
Check.
They did a roll call of the approimatley 200 random numbers assigned to you in your letter and when you heard your number you had to say 'here' as it is all recorded. This process took about 20 minutes. They made it very clear that the 28 people that did not show up for jury duty would be summoned for the next trial.
They explained to us that when the jury summons letter went out on Feb 23 that there were potentially 5 juries to be filled. By the time we arrived that morning, there were only 2 left to fill. When the judge arrived, that number was down to 1 jury. There were 200 people there to fill 1 jury of 12 individuals and 2 alternates. Wow.
It was explained to us that the number of juries required start to decrease because some of the cases will plea bargain, some plead guilty, and others opt to have a judge only trial. The trial that got dropped from the list that morning was one where they opted out of a jury and went with a judge only. We were also told that there are only 17ish jury trials a year in Calgary. That seems so few.
The actual selection part didn't start until almost 10:30. At this point, I had been at the court house for 2 hours.
Once the session was called to order and we all stood to welcome the judge they explained the case and listed all the witnesses and lawyers. If you knew any of the people listed you would be excused for impartiality. This particular case was a sexual assault.
Finally, the selection process started. They called 12 potential jurors at a time randomly from a bin full of the numbers that they had called to make sure that each person in the box was physically in the courtroom. After the first 12 potential jurors were called up, there was only 1 jury position filled. It started to become clear how long this process could take.
Once you were at the front you could either ask speak to the judge privately and be excused from jury duty because of certain reasons that the judge would assess or if you have no reason to be excuse, the lawyers each have a chance to challenge you. Each lawyer has 14 'challenges' which means no questions asked that juror would not be selected. This was done solely based on your looks and your occupation which you were required to put on your juror form. Not a word was spoken
I was amazed by how many potential jurors approached the bench to speak with the judge. Some valid reasons would be prepaid travel, final exams at university, undue financial hardship, or extenuating family commitments. It was interesting to find out that although your employer is required to give you time off to serve on a jury, you do not have to be paid. The court pays you $50 a day to sit on the jury. That kind of money doesn't pay the bills....
All but 3 of the jurors that approached the bench were excused. Of these 3, 2 ended up sitting on the jury.
It became very obvious that the prosecutor was looking for woman jurors and the defence was looking for men. The defence lawyer quickly used up his challenge and then mostly woman were making their way to the jury box.
It took 60 people to choose 14 jury members. I was not one of them. I didn't even get chosen to go to the front to stand in front of the lawyers. My experience of jury duty was over before it started. The whole process took 4 hours.
While I went in hoping to
not be chosen, as I sat there and listened to the numbers being called I found myself hoping to hear my number. Part of me was curious if the lawyers would have accepted me. I was wearing a modified corporate Christy look of dress pants and a blouse covered by my beige trench coat. I wondered if my profession of 'accountant' would make me to straight and narrow to see any gray area of the law. As I watched other peoples numbers get chosen I found myself trying to guess if they would be accepted by the lawyers. What were they looking for?
In the end, it didn't matter whether I wanted to be chosen or not,
I wasn't. I went back to the office ad everyone wanted to hear about my adventure. It was an adventure. While initially I would have done anything to get out of it, it was something I really enjoyed and found interesting. Maybe my next career should be a lawyer.
I am proud to have done my civic responsibilty and to have played an important role in the ensuring the individual has the right to be judged by a panel of his/her peers. This was repeated several times during our 4 hours at the courthouse. Even if we were not chosen, we were part of a process that is of the utmost importance to the legal system.
So... if you are ever chosen for jury selection, don't freak out like I did - embrace it, it really wasn't that bad.
