Jury Duty

I had jury duty a week ago Friday. In Illinois, we have a system called "one day or one trial", meaning if you don't get assigned to a trial on your first day, you are free to leave, and won't be called again for at least a year. This is nice, because if you don't get assigned to a trial, jury duty is spectacularly boring, and you can be guaranteed the spectacularly boring part will only last a day. On the other hand, we are called up for jury duty more often than folks in other states. Still, I've served twice in 13 years, and never been assigned to a trial — pretty good odds.

I passed the time reading and drawing, till they dismissed us early at about 3:15. I've been working on the program guide for WLUW, and I wanted some graphic images to use in it. I thought my jury duty time could be well spent drawing, especially since the jury waiting room is a good place to draw an American flag (seeing as how I don't have one at home).

I thought a picture of the American flag would be nice to accompany a little spot promoting Democracy Now and Free Speech Radio News, two progressive newscasts the station broadcasts. I am not one of those who agrees that the right wing owns the American flag. To me, the values the flag stands for are the values of progressive politics more than conservative. Still, I don't know if they will like my use of the flag in the program guide. I may well be asked to take it out. (Worth noting: neither DN's nor FSRN's web sites feature a flag anywhere on their home pages.)

On a side note, if anyone finds this web page while looking for information on serving jury duty in Chicago, let me point you in the right direction. If you do a web search on serving jury duty in Chicago, you won't find any official information. Why? Because technically, there are no Chicago courts, only Cook County courts. Tricky! Anyway, here's where you want to go for information on serving on a Cook County jury. (Incidentally, at 26th & California, where I served, they didn't take our cell phones and Blackberrys away from us — they just asked us to turn them off at certain times, and to talk on the phone only is designated areas so as not to disturb others.)

Labels: personal

posted by Tony at 12:38 PM