It was a rainy summer morning as I headed to the New Haven Superior Courthouse for Jury Duty. I had various concerns on my mind. I would like to be on a jury; I take my civic duty seriously. However, the next day I was supposed to be heading off for vacation. I hoped that I would either get picked for a jury that would start after vacation or that I would at least fulfill my responsibility and wouldn’t have to report the next day.

In many ways, I am an unlikely jury candidate. I am self-employed and a long trial would present a significant hardship. I am a blog, and a friend of mine who is a defense lawyer said she does not like to get bloggers on her juries. With close relatives that are retired law enforcement officers and numerous other situations, I did not expect to end up on a jury.

It had been many years since I had performed my last jury duty. That was in an old court house in Stamford. The jurors were led to a dungy basement room for their orientation and to await selection. Back then, I commented about how jury duty is important and jurors should be treated with more respect.

The New Haven Superior Court House was very different. We took the juror’s elevator, specifically designed to keep jurors away from discussions in the court house halls to one of the top floors of the court house. The seating was nice as was the views. They provided coffee, but unfortunately, I could not find any decaf, so I abstained. Various people worked on their laptops or chatted on their cellphones as they awaited instructions. I had considered bringing my laptop, but had decided against it and I never did find out if there was open WiFi there.

The orientation video and the various speeches by judicial officials were quick and not annoying despite the appellation of indoctrination that a friend of mine used. The friend also had claustrophobia and the small closed in rooms for the jury ended up getting her excused. I did not find the rooms so constraining.

As I waited to be called, I placed various phone calls and got a surprising amount of work done.

The trial I was selected for was of Anthony Maio, a New Haven Police Officer accused of fourth degree sexual assault. I remembered reading about this in the New Haven Independent, although I didn’t recall a substantial amount of details.

Initially, a group of about eighteen potential jurors were lead into the court room. We were told the names of lawyers and potential witnesses and asked if we knew anyone. Many of the witnesses are expected to be police officers and one of the potential jurors was a former police commissioner who knew many of the police officers. He was asked if his knowledge of the officers would affect is ability to render a fair and impartial decision, and he said he did not believe it did. The judge explored the relationship between the commissioner and the officers and in the end decided to err on the side of caution and excuse the former police commissioner. Others spoke of minor acquaintances with various lawyers or potential witnesses but these relationships were not significant enough to warrant excusal.

The next question to the whole pool was if being on the case would result in extreme hardship. The case is scheduled to start on August 3, so it would not mess up my vacation and it is expected to only run for a week or two, so the lost consulting income could be minimized. I deliberated in my mind about whether the hardship it would produce would be extreme and I decided it would not be. A few people spoke of extreme hardship and were questioned individually. I believe they were excused, but I do not know for a fact.

With these questions out of the way, the judge then excused a few more potential jurors that he believed could not be interviewed simply because of the amount of time available for interviews. The rest of us were broken into two groups. One group was to stay and be questioned immediately. The other could leave and return after lunch. Since one of the lawyers had a conflicting court appearance at two, the return time was scheduled to be three.

I was in the second group, so I returned home and did a little bit of work. My wife was home, so I chatted briefly with her about the case, and I responded to various comments on Facebook and Twitter where I had posted bits about the first part of my jury experience.