Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Jury Duty tomorrow

I have been "hereby summoned to serve as a trial juror" commencing tomorrow at 8h30.... If I disappear for days you know where I am.

I am not going to request a disqualification (in other words I am not going to use my "cancer card"), I don´t want to be prevented from ever serving as a juror.

"A person shall be capable of performing juror service if he or she can perform a sedentary job requiring close attention for 6 hours a day, with breaks in the morning and afternoon, for 3 consecutive days. If the disability is permanent, the physician must identify and describe the disability, explain how it prevents you from ever serving, and state specifically that you will never be able to serve as a juror."

The clinical trial makes it hard for me to pay "close attention" for more than 10 minutes. Michelle, Iris and others on anti-angiogenic drugs can tell about the effort we have to make to concentrate...

On the other hand, they must feed us a lot of donuts during the breaks. Maybe I will even gain a few pounds while I am locked inside a Massachusetts courthouse.

Or do we have to pack our lunches?

I think I´ll be alright and besides when I worked as a freelance court interpreter I once had to tell the judge: I am sorry Your Honor but the interpreter had a blackout, could the defendant repeat what he just said.

Another time, I was eight months pregnant and I had a contraction. The trial stopped for a few minutes for the interpreter to rest.

So, being a little spacedout might pass.

5 comments:

Kathy said...

When you're a juror, they provide everything, water, coffee, donuts, cookies and lunch. If you have special requests, the bailiff will try to accomodate as much as possible. I served over the Summer and I really enjoyed the experience. I wouldn't mind doing it again.
PS: The coffee we had at the Chicago criminal court was not half bad. I believe we got Starbucks.

Elsa D. said...

:)
thanks for the information Kathy. I am resting today or I will not make it tomorrow.

Kathy said...

Good luck.. Hope you get an interesting trial :) I will find out where I stand after the first 5 weeks on the Brivanib, tomorrow.

Michelle said...

Great! I got out of Jury duty! I also just had brain surgery..no way I was sitting in a room filled with germs and nasty people sneezing on me. Try to hit everyone up for Sarcoma donations! If you have to sit there, might as well educate everyone! Tell them sugar is bad for you and get fresh juices and veggies! Good luck!

Elsa D. said...

hihihihi you make me laugh.

I was ready to go when I remembered to call, I had a vague idea that I had received a paper with a badge and pin number...

when I checked before going to bed I saw they didn´t need me :)