The Group W Bench

I have been on jury duty since the end of August. My 10 week term is up next week. New Mexico criminals need have no fear, however, since my entire public duty stint came to nothing. Each week the jury administration notifies you if you are needed to appear in court the following week and every week, except once, I have been excused for duty.

The one time I did have to go in for a criminal trial jury selection, it was a complete bafflement. The system was efficient enough, herding potential jurors where we needed to be, lining us up for assigned seating. Tedious but efficient.

But when I got to my assigned seat in the voire dire room it was obvious I had been sent to the Group W Bench. The seats where they have no intention of questioning you much less selecting any of you but you get to play with the pencils while unintelligible stuff goes on around you.

My chair was in the very last row, up against the doors to the hallway. There were 39 seats, I was chair 37. Chairs were widely spread out for covid distancing. Everyone wore mandatory masks. I could not hear any of the masked lawyers way at the front of the room, and I could not see them over everyone's head in front of me either. The room was L shaped, so I could see no one around the corner.

I cranked my hearing aids up to eleven, which amplified the sounds in the hallway right behind me, but muffled anything further away, where the questioning and instructions were happening. For the entire session I heard everything going on in the hall but nothing at all of the voire dire other than noise.

The judge sat a little elevated in the front, so I could see part of him. But he was masked and robed and in the distance. His body language would indicate a question at times, and some people would raise hands, so I knew he was asking something. I did not raise my hand unless the entire room was doing so, then I put my hand up too.

At one point I asked the technician at the back of the room if the room's mike volume could be increased, but when he did that, the microphones screeched with horrid feedback so he turned them back down.

The rest of the process was a muffled, unintelligible blur, with some kind of activity going on with the people in the front five rows. No interactions happened with anyone at the back, and my row, the Group W bench at the hall doorway, was completely out of the picture. 

It turned out the others in my row were people who worked in law enforcement or had family who were police, and were clearly not going to be questioned for a criminal case jury. They weren't sure why they were even called, and I'm not sure why I was with them. 

I could tell it was over when everyone in the room got up. I have no idea what the case was, what questions were asked, what answers were given or where we were to go next. I sat for the entire morning wholly and utterly lost. I got up when everyone else did, turned down my hearing aids, took off my mask and went home.

Two days later I was politely informed I was not selected for that jury and did not have to come back the following week. I hope the defendant, whoever he or she was, got a fair trial.

My duty is now over, and at age 75 New Mexico allows seniors to decline serving. I'll be old enough to decline next time.