Voir dire
“I solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
On the evening of 4 May 2023, Paula Diaz, hereafter known as PD, called into the City of Chicago’s Jury Summons hot line as a possible alternate juror. In a recorded message, she learned that citizens who received the summons and had last names starting with the letters D (delta) through F (foxtrot) were required by law to report to the court building downtown Chicago on the morning of 5 May 2023.
Summoned citizens who failed to report could be held in contempt of court and face jail time of up to three days and/or fines of up to $1,000 and/or ordered to perform community service.
The rule-challenging but law-abiding PD dutifully reported to the court building at 9am (8:50 actually) as required, checked in, and found a chair close to one of the few power outlets in the waiting room. PD was led to believe by her spouse and other trust-worthy citizens that jury selection consisted of hours of sitting around, perhaps a questionnaire, and then dismissal around 4:30pm with a check for $35 in recognition of service. PD had no reason to doubt that the day would be anything other than an opportunity to do work that she had planned to do comfortably at home, discomfortably downtown while getting paid for it.
Her to-do list featured a number of reading and writing tasks, including but not limited to:
writing a blog for the 5th day of Mercedonius (likely about purses or possibly entitled “12:34 5/5” in honor of the full moon of that time and date);
grading essays;
reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Big Magic”;
completing the webcopy for her Camp Summer sales page;
setting up payment options for Camp Summer;
sending the first promo email to her mailing list announcing Camp Summer with a BOGO offer;
catching up on the webcopy bootcamp program she’d registered for in order to support writing a more successful sales page and launch email for Camp Summer (see above).
At 9:30am, group 35, of which PD was a member, was called up to the reception desk to be counted. After which PD and seven (7) other potential jurors returned to their seats. A few minutes later, group 35 was escorted to room (redacted) to answer questions about favorite TV shows, most admired people (not family members), and frequently read newspapers and magazines. And then, a few people spoke up:
One woman needed to drive her kids to school and lessons and practice and….stuff.
One woman taught 3rd grade and had done for 20+ years, so what of it?
One man did a remarkably good job of not understanding English. Remarkably.
PD disclosed no such feats nor complications. As she looked longingly at the heavy tote bag of obligations she had carried into the city, she knew the truth. She wanted to get picked for the jury. She’d never done it, she could do it, she would write a blog about it, and she already had a title.
And so she did.
