Monday, August 08, 2005

Jury Duty

What a drag. To approach this in a somewhat on-topic way, let's look at the fact that jurors are paid $40 for an 8-hour day. Isn't that less than minimum wage? They should pay you extra for the sheer mind-numbingness of the experience.
The most interesting part was the sadistic Filipino guy who was in my group as we were being interviewed by the attorneys. I say sadistic because he seemed to take great pleasure in telling one of the other prospective jurors that in his country, when he was young, he was told that "if you want to keeeel someone [said with his eyes opened very wide] you have to ask yourself if you have enough money to pay for the lawyers, and if you can pay to keep yourself out of jail, then go ahead and keeeel the person." He also let slip that he was only "there for a friend"-- hey, no photo ID required! And he mentioned that during lunch break, he'd spoken to Fernando Ferrer, a mayoral candidate here, and told him "he will never weeen because he is running against a beeellionaire!"

3 comments:

Jose Anes said...

Jury Duty is a duty... not a job.
That may be why the pay is minimal.

Nobody pays for voting... simply because it is a duty as well.

However, I understand why you may feel aggravated. I would also be. :)

Money and Investing

Madame X said...

My company pays me while I'm on jury duty, so I'm not personally affected, but it just seemed odd to me, and unfortunate for anyone who might really need the money!

Anonymous said...

Here in San Antonio, they pay SIX dollars a day.

Parking at the courthouse is $8.

Net is a $2 loss...