Juror Number 43

I spent several days at the Federal Courthouse for the district of Kansas this past week. We were initially warned that there was a case scheduled to start that week which was slated to run 4-6 WEEKS! Now, I know I was kind of looking forward to jury duty, but 4-6 weeks??? That's just crazy. As it turned out, our jury pool spent all day sitting in the jury assembly room on Tuesday, we didn't have to go in Wednesday, and Thursday we were there from 8:30 - 10:00 am. Just before we were released, the chief judge of the district came down to thank us and to apologize for having us sit around so much. But, as it turned out, our mere presence there as a potential jury may have influenced the criminal defendants to finally accept guilty pleas.

The 4-6 week trial (that never was) started out as an international drug smuggling case with 20 defendants. By the time we were called in to serve, all but TWO of the people charged had plead out. The last two were a husband and wife who owned the business out of which the whole drug ring was operated. On Tuesday, while we all cooled our heels in the jury assembly room, the husband had his attorney try every delay attempt in the book. When those all failed, he ended up pleading guilty.

The wife was not going to change her plea though. So the judge gave her a continuance until Thursday morning to try and reach a deal. As of Wednesday night, the lawyers told the judge that she was going to agree to a plea. However, this same woman had twice before told her lawyers she would plead out, only to change her mind once she actually made it into the court room. So the judge had the jury pool come in again on Thursday morning.

That morning, at 8:30 her attorneys said she'd changed her mind AGAIN and would not be pleading. So, they were set to start court at 9:30. Sometime in that hour, she changed her mind AGAIN! So between 9:30 & 10:00 she made her guilty plea official. Then the judge came down, gave us the entire scoop on what had been going on, and let us go with thanks.

So, I didn't get to serve on a jury... yet. I have to call back in over the labor day weekend to see if I have to report in on September 5th. Federal Jury duty is a 2 month obligation. So, I've still got a shot at a mini-vacation from my own reality.