When we think of jury duty we think of doing our duty to our country in order to ensure one of the facets of due process in that we provide the opportunity to a defendant to have a fair trial that is free of bias, partiality, and prejudice. The down side of the way jury duty is practiced in the United States is that in order to ensure the rights of the accused, regular citizens are stripped of their freedoms for an indefinite period of time while they are trapped in long and arduous court cases — and often without financial compensation other than $15 per day which does not even cover lunch or a cab fare.

However, upon further and closer inspection it seems that jury duty is not only a sacrifice of the juror’s short-term rights for the benefit of a defendant, but much worse. Jury duty has many parallels with human trafficking and actually meets the definition of human trafficking to a T.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Human trafficking can be defined as the transport of human beings from one location to the other in order to perform forced labor or sexual exploitation. Although it normally includes various other types of abuses as a matter of practices, those other abuses are not part of the definition.

JURY DUTY
Jury duty involves what I call “self-abduction under duress” as a primary stage of the process. This means that a jury member or prospective juror forces himself into a vehicle of some sort because he or she realizes that he/she will face a $1500 fine or possible incarceration if he/she doesn’t comply with the request made in writing by the court administration. The mafia also makes threats when they want you to do something. They threaten you with physical harm or threaten to harm loved ones or your possessions. Maybe the supreme court is more similar to the mafia than we think.

Jury duty involves the transportation or trafficking or “self-trafficking under duress” of jurors or prospective jurors from one location to another (home to a court building) for the purpose of forced labor in the form of decision making shoddily performed intellectual labor. The irony is that most jurors do not have the intellectual capacity nor care enough about their cases to give the defendant a fair trial.

Here is a satirical line from one of my comedy routines:
“Your honor, I believe that jury duty is similar in essence to human tracking. Both involve the transport or self-transport of individuals from one location to another for the sake of sexual exploitation or forced labor. I am relieved that I am here for forced jury related labor and not for sexual services because quite frankly your honor — you’re not my type.”

LEGAL QUESTIONS
Kidnapping is the unlawful abduction, transport, and holding of a person against their will. But, is it lawful for the court system to hold people against their will in a court room? If a juror does not complain about being there it does not appear that they are being kidnapped. But, what id they do announce that they do not consent to being strong-armed into staying there? Denying a person their freedoms as a law abiding person is a violation of their human rights. Is it legal for a court to cheat you out of your human rights? Is holding someone in court against their will hostage taking, kidnapping, or none of the above? I am not an Attorney and don’t know, but it seems that a lot of these accusations are up to interpretation.

EXCESSIVE WAITING
Since America has a policy of offering a public trial by jury to criminals and also sometimes for civil trials, that necessitates having a jury. Whether the jury is assembled by paying them, giving incentives, or forcing them to come under duress seems to vary. But, putting aside whether jurors are consensually performing their duty or paid is one issue — whether they should be allowed to be required to wait for five hours in a room doing absolutely nothing is a very different consideration.

Imagine a brain surgeon whose time is worth $2000 per hour is summoned (or as I call it “drafted”) to do jury duty. But, all he does is sit in a room all day long. That is a gross waste of the individual’s time. And that waste is justified because the law stipulates that a jury needs to consist of a cross section of society. But, to get the higher level members of the cross section of society, is it fair to waste $1600 of their time having them just sit around? That seems criminal to me, yet society in its incompetence allows this.

The duration of trials is another point to be considered. Some trials go on and on and on with new evidence and witnesses being called in slowly day after day. If you have a critical job, you will get very behind while you are trapped in a court room which could affect your co-workers, boss, and customers. It seems that there should be limits as to how long a trial should last. It also seems logical that those with critical jobs be put on shorter trials. The courts used to honor hardship, but these days they do not which is dangerous.

Personally, I feel that for smaller cases, there should be an option to have a very quick trial where all witnesses come at once, there is almost no waiting time, and you get in and out in a few hours. Jury selection is another topic that takes time. But, a pre-selection could be done online or over the phone to see what a juror’s prejudices are which would help the court choose what type of case to put them on.

I wasted two hours in a court room where a police man was on trial a few years ago. I spent five hours waiting in the waiting room, then spent two hours in a court room only to find out that they couldn’t use me, perhaps because I mentioned having had several bad experiences with Los Angeles Police Department members. If my style of jury preparation had been used, all of the screening would have happened by phone the night before and they would have picked a nice short trial the next day for me to go to with no waiting time. Efficiency saves a lot of money, but the court system is government run and therefore not very good at erring on the side of efficiency.

I hope that my article was thought inspiring. I am very frustrated with having to do jury duty. I like being on a jury, but cannot stand being virtually kidnapped by the court system and than having my time wasted. When bank robbers rob a bank and then find themselves surrounded by the police, the hostages in the bank do very much the same activities you do on day one of jury duty — namely sitting in a room for hours on end doing absolutely nothing — oh, and having to ask permission to go to the bathroom.

Once upon a time there was a mean judge who never gave jurors a break. Many of the jurors on his cases had hardships meaning that nobody could replace them at work or that they didn’t get paid for even one day of jury duty. He caused so much suffering to so many people and didn’t even care. But, one day his luck changed.

The judge woke up in the morning, went to the kitchen to find a little box of chocolates on the kitchen table with a note. The note said that some people needed his help in Mexico to decide on a disagreement between cartels. He would receive instructions later. Someone had picked the lock and quietly entered, turning off his high-end alarm system somehow and getting out without making a sound. Obviously the work of seasoned professionals.

The next day when the judge went to work he noticed some shady looking people walking slowly through the neighborhood. He called the police, but the police informed him that they were not in fact committing a crime, so they could do nothing. That night he got a phone calls from a man with a Mexican accent telling him that he should get up early tomorrow and await further instructions.

By this point the judge was terrified and called the police again. But, the police said that no crime had been committed and that there was no evidence of a break in and no fingerprints either.

The next day, the judge woke up to find his car was missing, but there was a brand new Cadillac SUV in his driveway with keys on his kitchen table. There were instructions to drive to a particular municipal airport and not to call the police, otherwise there would be trouble. Fearing for the safety of the wife and kids he did what the instructions said and drove to the airport. From there he was escorted onto a small plane that flew into Zacatecas province in Mexico.

He was to do a quick trial between the Zacatecas cartel and the Sinaloa cartel. They ad a disagreement over money that would lead to a huge shoot out if not resolved quickly. The cartel guys who hired him informed the judge that although this is inconvenient for him, it will greatly benefit society if he provides his service. The judge agreed although he didn’t want to be there.

The judge was given free hotel accommodations courtesy of his contact person Juan who was very polite to the judge. Meals were provided by Juan’s sister Carmelita who made the best tamales in Zacatecas. But, tamales were not for free. They charged the Judge 32 cents per Tamale. Juan explained that at court snack bars, the jurors are not there by choice, but at least they get snacks for a reasonable price so he would extend the same courtesy to the judge.

The next day, the judge was informed that the expert witness would be delayed and the that court case would be delayed for two weeks. No phone calls were allowed during this time. Finally, the witness showed up, and there was another delay because the Sinaloa cartel couldn’t show up. So, a few more days waiting time. After 17 days, finally they were ready for a trial. The judge listened to both sides of this crazy argument and worked out an agreement.

After that the judge asked why they wanted him of all people. They explained that they didn’t like Mexican judges because they were all corrupt and that they wanted a nice gringo judge. It took the judge five hours to work out their problems. Then they flew the judge back to Los Angeles, gave him his car back and left him alone.

The next day, there was a thank you present once again on the kitchen table with cash paying the judge $15 per day for his service — exactly what California jurors are paid for their service. He also got paid 34 cents per mile radius from his hotel to the court room plus mileage fees for the flight to Mexico which was paid for by Juan. $468.26 cents was what the judge got for his service.

Meanwhile the judge lost his job due to being absent. The judge’s wife left him because she was terrified and his own kids were not allowed to talk to him. All for $468.26. On the other hand, he probably single-handedly prevented dozens of people from being gunned down which makes it worth while in some way, shape or form.

The moral of the story is that jury duty can be very beneficial for society and justice, but it also causes severe problem to people’s lives, their bosses, customers and family. The courts think they can pay pennies for disrupting our lives, but they don’t seem to understand how much harm they exact on us for some benefit to society.

I am always upset when I have to do jury duty. I like being on a jury, but all the waiting time, delays, and inefficiencies drive me up the wall. Most of all, I don’t like being held captive for an indefinite period of time. I have things to do and I lack patience.

I think that for a jury to give someone “justice” they should not only be impartial, but intellectually capable of understanding a complicated case with conflicting information. Additionally, they should have the discipline to go through all aspects of the case during deliberation point by point in a meticulous way. When I was on a case, the other people did not want to discuss the case during deliberation. They all made up their mind within one second just like that. I was a bit offended, but what could I do. I wanted to discuss the benefit of the doubt, but they wanted to vote guilty as they had no doubts.

For a jury to be a good one, people should be tested to see if they are really impartial and can make fair decisions. Most people cannot. Most people don’t have the patience to sit in court for days and sort complicated issues out. But, what if juries were trained and selected so that only people who were fair and disciplined could be on a jury. And what if those people were paid as well? This is not the same as being a professional juror, but a screened juror. Just my idea.

THE STORY
A judge had to be in court by 11am for his case. He went to the gas station. It was closed, and there was a sign on the front saying, “closed for jury duty.” A guy cleaning up in the back called the clerk for the judge. The clerk was in the court building but in the waiting room doing nothing. The judge was out of gas and needed help. He needed to be towed to the next closest gas station, but the tow truck only took cash. So, the judge went to the bank, but the bank had a line 80 people long because most of the tellers were on jury duty. The manager at the bank called the tellers on the judge’s behalf only to find that they were also in the waiting room and not on a case. Finally the judge called the tow truck company and told them he could not get cash in time. They said it did not matter anyway because they were short staffed as their main driver was doing jury duty, but once again not on a case as he was in the waiting room.

Having juries is an important part of American due process and justice. However, society suffers when services are not rendered because people are on a jury. Perhaps that is a price that society has to pay for justice. But, society also pays a price when the court system virtually hijacks people and makes them sit all day in waiting rooms — however, there is no benefit to society to force people to sit idle for hours on end. Maybe one day the court system will figure this out.

In any case, the judge had to walk to court in the rain. It took him two hours. But the time he got there it was 12:30pm. By the time he got there the jurors were all at lunch. So, he had to wait until 1:15pm to get started. Finally, 1:15 arrived, a bunch of jurors came up to see if they could be selected. However, the case involved a police officer who had been involved in some type of misconduct. The prospective jurors were interviewed briefly by an Attorney who dismissed all of them as they all had some type of bias against police officers. The moral of the story is that the jurors had their time virtually stolen from them not for jury duty but for court inefficiencies which was bad not only for them, but for their clients.

The tow truck juror gave the judge a lift to his car, and then came back with a tow truck, and then towed him to another gas station. The judge got gas, thanked everybody and then went home only to find a summons. The judge had been selected for jury duty. He would have to give up all of his cases indefinitely because he too had jury duty and would be on the hook indefinitely as they don’t accept hardship as an excuse anymore.

I hope you enjoyed my cute story. The moral of the story is to screen people over the phone or using an app rather than having people sit doing nothing all day long for no reason. I’m sure the millennials will agree with me on this issue.