This is not about the virtues or non-virtues of 'Grand Jury Service'. This post is about our personal experience, viewpoint on this and the impracticalities involved.
Needless to say my heart skipped a beat when the wife was notified. I even had trouble sleeping the night before. It wasn't because of her being required every Tuesday for 18 months to serve.
Nor because of her job being disrupted. No, the near panic is having to go in and out of Philadelphia 72x's between this past Tuesday and until February 3rd, 2013. Here's why.
My wife's van is 21 years old. Mine isn't much better, it's 22 years old. They both serve us well since I'm retired and her work is only 2 miles away, but shuttling back and forth to Philadelphia with these old vehicles is a really, really bad idea. So that left us with only two choices. Drive or take the bus.
In order for her to report she would have to catch the 5:45AM bus to get her there before the appointed time, 8:30AM. That's 1 hour and 50 minutes travel time by bus. Then walk 5 blocks down to the courthouse. Or I could drive her down in little over an hour. We elected to chance the old van and drove.
First off, the exit from the Vine Street expressway to the 6th street exit was not clearly marked and I missed it and ended up on I-95 South. Oh CRAP!
I took the next exit off I-95 and after a few blocks managed to find 7th Street. Anyone who's familiar with Philadelphia realizes what they call streets are alleys. Long story short, that cost me 20 minutes. I did manage to find a parking garage at 9th & Arch. We both walked to the courthouse at 6th & Market. The folks there are a accommodating as they can be under the circumstance. They offer coffee, juice and some snack vouchers. They even left me go in with her for two hours before chasing non-summed family members out.
As it turned out that day there was a ozone & heat advisory. OH crap again. Talk about miserable. I walked around to kill time. I went to the Gallery, to Washington Square park and other places but each 15 minutes seemed like an hour. Trying to make this already long story short, the wife was not picked... THANK YOU.. OH THANK YOU!
As a result (unlike the less fortunate souls) she was dismissed at 12:35PM and called me on the cell phone to meet her back at the courthouse. See now here's the thing.. if she had taken the bus, the next bus out was at 4:15PM. She would have had to wait almost 4 hours and the bus would not have arrived back into Allentown until 6:10PM !! That sucks!!
So we hopped into the van and headed back home around 1:00 PM. Oh it gets better...
At the 48 mile marker, between Quakertown and the Lehigh Valley exit, the van started bucking and died about one mile later leaving us stranded on the side of the turnpike. OH SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!!!!
Well after a few minutes of monkeying under the hood I got the van to limp along the shoulder at about 20 mph. Yea I know dangerous, but every foot we go is another foot closer to home. All in a sudden the van blew a hole in the muffler and we took off. So I assume the muffler decided to close up and choke off the engine, but the hole made it possible to get home after another 20 minute delay. WHEW!
So here's a few observations
I couldn't think of a worse place to require grand jurors to report every week. The district the court serves couldn't be located any further South from the counties where it has jurisdiction. We have a federal courthouse right here centrally located in Allentown and yet... what's with that?
Another thing. No matter how many times they tell those summoned that they have been handed an "opportunity", looking around at the faces and with 50% of the hands going up to declare hardships, few are buying that. :-)
I repeat, security and all the folks who work down there tried very hard to excuse and accommodate as much as they possibly could. They reimburse tolls, mileage and parking. Despite all of this.. traveling into the busiest part of Philadelphia at the busiest part of the day sucks. Not to mention the pitfalls of Schuylkill Expressway when there's inclement weather and the inevitable resulting accidents.
Back to the bus. Regular Grand Jury duty is normally supposed to end at 4:00PM. The bus leaves at 4:15PM. That doesn't leave enough of a buffer. Miss the 4:15PM and the next one is at 5:30PM, getting you back into Allentown at 8:05PM.
Now we could talk public transportation all you want, but the fact is for draftees coming from Berks, Lehigh or Northampton counties they are looking at a 2 hour bus ride and that's after hooking up with the bus either in Allentown or Bethlehem. This is the only alternative unless they have a decent vehicle and the driving skills necessary to navigate the busy streets and expressways of Philadelphia. Some of you folks who live in the Lehigh Valley may do this as a daily habit, but for the majority of us in our 60's, this just plain sucks.
If Only
We have a perfectly fine U.S. District Courthouse centrally located in this distict in Allentown. Then again when you are the U.S. government who has the power to fine, jail and sentence for not showing up for duty, you can pretty much ignore the inconveniences imposed.
One last concern I have is the physical risks involved. Yeah some of you may call me a pansy, but according to Wikipedia the Schuylkill Expressway,I couldn't agree more!
No matter how you slice it, traveling to Philadelphia for 'Grand Jury Duty' gives me extreme anxiety like I never felt before. On that day I related to our cat when we take him to the vet in his cage. I felt like a trapped animal and couldn't wait to escape. Call it a mental condition or the anxiety of someone who doesn't get out enough, but that's my reality. That's just how it is with me and I can't be the only one.
United States Jury Service
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