I was asked to write something for the Sydney Morning Herald opinion section on my jury duty expereince. I wrote this, which was 6000 words too long but here it is for you:
When I got called for jury selection, like many people I racked my brain for possible excuses from the experience. Annoyingly I was not pregnant, travelling overseas or in need of an operation. Kicking myself for not going to Bolivia, severing a finger or being a woman, I glumly accepted my fate and found out via a rather Orwellian phone message service the date and time of my required service.
Presenting myself to three gruff sheriffs outside the Dickensian Darlinghurst courts, I was unceremoniously shoved two slips of paper. One form was how you wished to be paid, the other one to fill out if you wanted an “application”. Thinking I was about to go in for a job interview, I was later told by a booming court sheriff that it was an application for my appeal to be excused. With words like ‘application’, ‘appeal’ and ‘excused’, already felt like I was the one on trial, but after entering the cavernous court room one, I realised I was one of 70 citizens, about to serve their community.
After a rather epic speech about how you could be excused if you were a policeman, dentist, miner, mother, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, we were asked to fill in our forms to make an ‘application, explaining our reasons why the judicial machine should let us free. I looked about and pretty much most of the 70 people in the room were hunched over, tongues protruding working on what seemed to be their magnum opus. But what surprised me were the amount of people availing themselves to be on a jury, and they were not the student, old lady, unemployed brigade but a pretty average and cultural biopsy of the community. Anyway, I was wasting precious excuse-making time, so I looked at my form and was horrified that the space available to create the masterpiece was not generous, more space is given to fill out your address on a drivers licence form. So in this 2 cm cube I wrote a poetic description of my job and how great tragedy would befall myself and the company if I was gobbled up in the court system X amount of time. This effort was not helped by the fact it was one of the coldest July mornings of the year and the archaic old court room had no heating expect from an old spluttering fan heater over 20 meters away. My fingers were solid granite and being someone whose writing has been likened to a doctors script the end result was a page of smudged scribblings.
Presenting myself to three gruff sheriffs outside the Dickensian Darlinghurst courts, I was unceremoniously shoved two slips of paper. One form was how you wished to be paid, the other one to fill out if you wanted an “application”. Thinking I was about to go in for a job interview, I was later told by a booming court sheriff that it was an application for my appeal to be excused. With words like ‘application’, ‘appeal’ and ‘excused’, already felt like I was the one on trial, but after entering the cavernous court room one, I realised I was one of 70 citizens, about to serve their community.
After a rather epic speech about how you could be excused if you were a policeman, dentist, miner, mother, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, we were asked to fill in our forms to make an ‘application, explaining our reasons why the judicial machine should let us free. I looked about and pretty much most of the 70 people in the room were hunched over, tongues protruding working on what seemed to be their magnum opus. But what surprised me were the amount of people availing themselves to be on a jury, and they were not the student, old lady, unemployed brigade but a pretty average and cultural biopsy of the community. Anyway, I was wasting precious excuse-making time, so I looked at my form and was horrified that the space available to create the masterpiece was not generous, more space is given to fill out your address on a drivers licence form. So in this 2 cm cube I wrote a poetic description of my job and how great tragedy would befall myself and the company if I was gobbled up in the court system X amount of time. This effort was not helped by the fact it was one of the coldest July mornings of the year and the archaic old court room had no heating expect from an old spluttering fan heater over 20 meters away. My fingers were solid granite and being someone whose writing has been likened to a doctors script the end result was a page of smudged scribblings.
This was not going to go well, I thought as I slid down my oak pew. The sign “jurors in waiting”, officiously branded in the wall behind me, permanent and unmovable, summed up my chances quite aptly I thought.
This case was the Oscar of 2008 trials, the Gordon Wood case, expected to mammoth 16 weeks minimum. As I explain to a sheriff who was as festive as a pit-bull in a party hat, my boss would rather run through Circular Quay in a flaming grass skirt than let my clients go to seed over 4 months. The sheriff growled that my excuse was not good enough and that “anyone could use that excuse”. I was quite taken aback as I thought career requirements would be as serious as studies and well timed breeding. Lady pit-bull then told me that I would have to talk with the judge to be let free. This to my horror would happen two hours later in open court. We were frog marched into the court room and the entire court was set up and chomping at the bit to get moving - barristers, reporters, court assistants and a rather stoic and grand looking judge who looked like he had been whittled from a thousand year old piece of oak.
Lining up for our private audience with the judge, perky words like ‘empanelled’, ‘sequester’, ‘unemployment’ and ‘destitute’ whirled in my head with cyclonic fervour. I snapped to attention when I saw the Judge beckoning me over with a finger so long and bony that it must have creaked like a wooden box lid when moved. Up close he took on an even more Tolkien like severity, this was not helped by the fact he was a little over 3 feet higher than my head (I am 6’3) in his seat. The similarities between this and Oliver and the slop server were not lost on me. The judge then spoke in an alarmingly soft and kind voice “what is your application” he asked. I managed to ramble coherently about work, 16 weeks, elves and a grand quest to not be on the bread line by December. He smiled kindly, half expecting him to flick a large lever and I would tumble into a pit lined with spikes. But he whispered ‘you are excused’.
But that, however, was not it. I was promptly told by Ms Pit-bull that I was required back in two weeks for another trial.
Lining up for our private audience with the judge, perky words like ‘empanelled’, ‘sequester’, ‘unemployment’ and ‘destitute’ whirled in my head with cyclonic fervour. I snapped to attention when I saw the Judge beckoning me over with a finger so long and bony that it must have creaked like a wooden box lid when moved. Up close he took on an even more Tolkien like severity, this was not helped by the fact he was a little over 3 feet higher than my head (I am 6’3) in his seat. The similarities between this and Oliver and the slop server were not lost on me. The judge then spoke in an alarmingly soft and kind voice “what is your application” he asked. I managed to ramble coherently about work, 16 weeks, elves and a grand quest to not be on the bread line by December. He smiled kindly, half expecting him to flick a large lever and I would tumble into a pit lined with spikes. But he whispered ‘you are excused’.
But that, however, was not it. I was promptly told by Ms Pit-bull that I was required back in two weeks for another trial.
Oooh gripping, stay turned for next week's part 2, where I lose my marbles.
