Travis County Jury Duty Day

I've received three jury summonses (yes, that is the plural, I checked) in my life. The first was in Houston, when I was about 19. I showed up to a room with several hundred people. They pulled 60-70 into the voir dire process for one court, then the next 60-70 for another court, etc., until they finally let the remainder of us leave. I never even made it to voir dire.

The next time I received a summons was when the kiddo was a toddler, so I claimed the exemption and wasn't required to show up.

A few weeks ago, I received my third one. Travis County uses an online process and I was assigned to show up for a criminal district court. This time, I went directly to a specific courtroom with 74 others for voir dire.

Sadly, I don't have any secrets for parking at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center. Everyone had woeful stories of parking. Having someone drop you off and pick you up is easiest (thanks Jeff!). There is currently only street parking near the building, but I heard it fills up by about 7:30 am. There aren't any public garages very close, although you can walk a few blocks up/down some steep hills in that area. All the construction downtown has many public parking lots rented/full with construction employees. Cap Metro will get you there, but I didn't talk to or hear anyone say they had taken it. From my part of town, I would have had to leave about an hour earlier to take a bus than I did just being dropped off.

If you are able to get a metered street spot and are not able to keep the meter fed through the day, the court will (currently anyway) dismiss your ticket. You just mail it in and let them know you were in jury duty. Most people found street parking somewhere, but not necessarily close. The bailiff was very clear that if you park in an illegal spot, private parking, or are towed, etc., they do NOT cover those expenses, so be sure you are parked in a legitimate public parking space and are just ticketed for not paying the meter.

I was supposed to be there at 9 am. I arrived at the building at 8:40. The officers at the security checkpoint at the entrance to the building were super-friendly and I was through security in about 30 seconds with a couple of people in front of me. It gets crowded towards 9 am, of course, and people who arrived closer to 9 reported security was pretty fast, but the elevators had an enormous line. People were told to take the stairs, but the bailiff (after a few people arrived very winded) said that wasn't necessary. The lines move quickly and you would be late only by a couple of minutes, which is okay.

On arrival, we checked in with the bailiff in the hallway outside the courtroom. He gave each of us a form to fill out with our preference for jury duty payment (whether you want to take the check, or donate all or part of it). We were also assigned a juror number at check-in. We were supposed to arrive at 9 am, and were in the hallway until about 10 am. The chairs were comfortable and the hall was nice and cool, so it was totally fine. Bring a book or an iPad or laptop to pass the time.

Our jury pool was numbered 1 to 74. I was number 14. I figured I was in the running to get chosen, and sure enough, it was true. The prosecution and defense attorneys remove all the prospective jurors they don't want, then just start at juror number 1 and name jurors in order, skipping the ones they removed. The juror numbers were assigned randomly, so it's fair.

When we went into the courtroom, after the judge, defendant and both sides' attorneys were set up, we were seated in numerical order, starting with number 1 right up front, in chairs with our juror number on a paddle.

The prosecutors spoke first, and talked for about 1.5 hours (although it seems that they were supposed to only have an hour). They went through a lot of general terms and concepts involved in our specific case, and asked questions to the group. We usually answered by raising our numbered paddles. People were sometimes called on to give specific answers or additional details. There was only one question where each one of us was asked to answer individually.

We had a 20 minute recess, during which a few people were dismissed. They were just the people who had very obvious problems with serving on this particular case, like someone who knew the judge, someone who had been a victim of that same type of crime, and stuff like that.

Then the defense spoke for about 30-40 minutes. (There is a lot of information that the defense wants that is answered during the prosecution's presentation, so they get less time.) The defense questions were a bit more specific, having gotten a feel for people during the initial questioning.

We had another recess, during which the people who had any problems with serving that had come up since the original sign-up, like illness, could talk to the judge about being dismissed. Many of those people were dismissed during that recess. That recess was a long one, maybe 30-45 minutes.

The rest of us filed back into the courtroom and the judge called names of selected jurors. At that time, I had about 8 people before me, so I figured I was in, but no! They chose a couple of people before me, then juror #15 and continued on. I had mixed feelings, because I really wanted to be on the jury, but of course it isn't too bad being dismissed either.

They let the jury go to lunch and dismissed the rest of us. It was about 2pm, but seemed to be running much later than it normally does. There is "real food" in a nearby building, but there are also vending machines and a snack bar on the first floor at the back of the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center.