So I’ll be in Jury Duty tomorrow, the first time in almost four years. My experience with the LA County Superior Court has never been great, nor would I expect it to, but do they at least have free Wifi in the waiting room?
I’m thankful that I’ve been summoned to the San Fernando courthouse rather than the Van Nuys one, but it would have been even better to serve in Santa Clarita.
This is going to sound really geeky, but I’m actually looking forward to using some of the tech gadgets I got for Christmas while I wait around for the County.
I’m definitely bringing my new Sony Reader. If you’re not familiar with this device, it’s an electronic book reader that uses some crazy new technology called “E Ink.” E Ink is like no display technology you’ve ever seen before. It quite literally looks like an Etch a Sketch screen until you turn the device on. Once it’s on, the LCD display looks like typewritten paper. Letters, symbols and even black and white pictures are crisp, legible, and precise. The device uses no battery power when it displays a “page,” it only discharges when you tun the page. Since I got the Reader for Christmas, I’ve only charged it once.
You can download books from Sony’s store or find free ones online. So far, I’ve got about 30 books on my Reader, and all of the ones I’ve purchased have cost about 60% less than their paper cousins. On my reading list for tomorrow is World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. If I decide I want something more heavy and a bit less sci-fi, Robert Reich’s Supercapitalism is also on my Reader. Two days ago, I finished Imperial Life on the Reader, but it may be worth it to re-read a few of the more interesting chapters.
Anyway, I digress. Here’s some info about Los Angeles County’s Superior Court:
- 50 Courthouses, including one named after Supervisor Antonovich in the Antelope Valley
- Nine different divisions, including Traffic (no speeding tickets for me in 8 years, knock on wood), Mental Health (Brittney Court?), Civil (the People vs SCV Republican Machine?), Family and Juvenile
- Courtrooms: 583
- Employees: 429 Judges; 14 Referees (?), 140 commissioners, and 5,712 employees(!)
- Case Filings (FY 2005-06) : 64,197 Civil; 68,277 Felony; 117,982 Family Law; 1,716,932 Traffic Infractions; 2,614 Mental Health
- Juror Summons: 2,687,360 mailed, 958,242 Jurors Qualified, 1.31 Average Days served
- Jury Trials: 5,310 in 2005-06; that breaks down to 20 trials a day on a 260 work-day year, and we know Courts keep Banker’s hours
- Fee for ignoring Jury Summons: $1,500
- Getting to take all your anger about being summoned out on a defendant? Priceless (JUST KIDDING)
Gee, with those statistics in mind, suddenly Carl Boyer’s plan to split the county isn’t looking so bad. Ooops, does that disqualify me?
I’ll try to get the Daily Brief done tomorrow before I head over the hill, and I really hope they have Wifi (the Superior Court’s website is positively byzantine and even Google probes of it don’t reveal whether they do) so I can continue to browse, shop, read, watch, and react to whatever is on the internets (particularly New Hampshire results).
When it comes right down to it, I’m a civic-minded guy so I don’t mind this process. It has to be done. It’s sloppy, it’s slow, it’s inefficient, and it’s inconvenient. But it’s the American way and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Duty, Honor and all that!