In December I received a little postcard in the mail. Most of what we get in the mail is junk that I immediately throw in the recycle bag, but I’m glad I hesitated this time. The postcard was so small I almost missed it. I had been called for jury duty. In Seattle. How did they find me?! They wanted me to come in over the Christmas holidays while I was in Atlanta so I went to their website and postponed…as long as I could. April – that seems far away! Well as you know it’s April. That was fast. The day before I had to go I checked out their website because I had lost that tiny postcard (Paper! Am I right??) and didn’t know where to go. It told me to go to a high rise downtown and actually had pictures of the jury room (a first!) and shockingly it looked WONDERFUL! It was on the 12th floor overlooking the sound and mountains with floor to ceiling windows – a far cry from the windowless room I was confined to in Massachusetts the one other time I was asked to perform jury duty while I was in college.Not only was it a window filled haven, but it had lots of board games, magazines, a full kitchen and even several terraces with gardens overlooking the city. I was actually excited to go! Excited for jury duty. That’s a first. So the next day I hopped on the bus, found the building (which was gorgeous by the way) and made my way to security and up to the 12th floor. When I got there I was greeted by a very nice, but confused woman. She told me that jury duty isn’t in this building today and I’m supposed to be in the superior court. Luckily that was only two blocks away. I was pretty let down. I got a glimpse of my jury duty dream only to have it ripped away. Well maybe the other court is just as nice I thought….riiiight :).
I arrived at the other court and quickly realized it was the completely opposite of municipal court. This building was in front of a bus stop and the building looks like it was built in the 1700s. I found my way to the jury room and was greeted with…a windowless beige room with rows upon rows of people stuffed in it. I sighed. There were forms to fill out so I found a seat and did that. But then I realized something: there seems to be a room attached to the jury room that was basically empty and seemed to have tables and outlets and breathing space. A working room perhaps? At first I thought we weren’t allowed in there, but after watching it for a while I decided to test my luck. No one stopped me! This was part of the jury room!
I settled down with my laptop plugged in and discovered they had free wifi. WOAH! The room also had TVs that showed what was happening in the main room. I didn’t have to move! The announcers and judge that greeted us were all cracking jokes and talking about how grateful they were to have us. This is not the jury duty I’m used to…I had a lovely time catching up on retirement and low-carb reading until they started calling out names to see who was going to court. I was called in the first group. For the next few hours I listened to the opinions of my 60 or so other jurors and they were fascinating. We had such different views on the same topic. Most of the people in the room were retired and blue collar workers. I need to expand my friend groups it seems because listening to them their experiences did seem to make their views make sense even though they opposed mine.
At the end of the day I wasn’t picked for the jury which was lucky because I was falling asleep a little at the end. I don’t know if I could do that for weeks. I also think I was totally biased to the case, which lawyers don’t seem to like :). They also don’t seem to like people that actually know about the law since the lawyers there were dismissed almost immediately. You don’t want anyone to know what you’re doing eh? That’s not a good sign.
In the end I was very impressed with jury duty in Seattle. Like with basically everything in this city it was well organized and thought through with comfort of people in mind. Everyone was friendly and put a smile on my face. I even made friends with my fellow jurors. I can’t imagine that happening in New York or Massachusetts. One of these friends informed me that since she did jury duty in Seattle ten years ago they had made a lot of improvements including calling people based on zip code. Previously she had to go to Kent despite living in Seattle, which is basically impossible to get to by bus. Instead this morning I got on a bus literally outside my house that dropped me off outside the court building. It couldn’t have been easier.
Seattle’s ability and willingness to improve is very impressive to me. Even on the bus today I was reveling with how superior our Orca tap system is on public transit. It’s so much easier and quicker than the flimsy cards you have to swipe or insert in NYC. In Seattle you don’t even have to take it out of your wallet. Everyone gets on the bus faster and buses stay on time. This is becoming an I love Seattle post….but I don’t care because I do :). I prepared for the worst, but genuinely had a fine time at jury duty. I bet you haven’t heard that before!