A while back I received a “Summons for Standby Jury Service.”  It read as follows (except that it was in all caps, but I won’t do that to you):

By order of the circuit court of Cook County, Illinois, you are hereby designated as a Standby Juror.  Please phone 312-603-5950 after 4:30 P.M. on the date before service date.  A recorded message will inform you whether you need to report on the date and time at the court indicated below.

What to Expect: Standby Jury Duty Chicago Criminal Court

Summons for Standby Jury Service Notice

I called the day before and they have you pick the court you are calling about.  In my case it was “Criminal Court.”  They then gave you the alphabetical range of last names that were required to report.  I was in the range.

The one thing that is nice about all this is that there is free parking for people doing Jury duty.  The parking garage is located at the southeast corner of 26th and California, directly east of the Courthouse (click here for a Google map):

Preparation for Jury Duty

I entered the parking garage on 26th street where I have the arrow but when I went to leave at the end of the day, that entrance was closed and I had to leave on the west side of the building.  You can click on the map above to go to Google maps.

This is what I’d suggest, having just gone through it:

• Fill out the back of your jury duty notification before you show up.
• Pack a lunch.  You are allowed to bring your lunch and I’d recommend it.  Once you get settled in the waiting room you may not want to abandon you comfy spot, pack up your valuables, and go down a floor and go to the cafeteria.  I wasn’t impressed by the cafeteria.
• Bring a bag to put your stuff in.
• Bring your laptop, tablet, a book, and any other thing you’d like to do with your spare time.  I got there at about 9:15 AM and I wasn’t called in until 2:40 PM.  That is a lot of time to burn.
• Make sure you don’t have a pocket knife in your pocket, or a screw driver in your bag, or anything else that you couldn’t take on an airplane because you’ll have to pay to lock it in a little locker vending machine (or throw it away).  You do have to give them credit, at least they do have easy ways of storing your belongings–the vending machine-like lockers.
• If you are going to bring a newspaper with you make sure you have a bag or a jacket to hide it in.  You are not allowed to bring newspapers (out in the open) into the courtroom.

Here’s how my standby jury day went

Parking

There is a parking garage on the southeast corner of 26th and California that allows jurors to park free.  Make sure you bring your jury duty notification–that notification letter is your ticket to free parking.  Just show the notification to the person at the parking lot and they’ll let you in.  I turned into this parking garage from 26th street on the north side of the parking garage.  Make sure to note where in that garage you parked your car–you don’t want to be walking around on a cold day in December like I would have had to!

Take Note Where You Parked!

You can then go down the stairs in the corners of the parking garage and then walk straight west out of the parking garage building (you don’t need to go out a specific exit).

Entering the Courthouse

The entrance is actually south of the courthouse building–a glass atrium area between the courthouse on the corner and the building to the south of it.  If you walk across California on the crosswalk then go straight across the street and into the building–the crosswalk lines up with the entrance.  When you go in the atrium doors you’ll immediately be greeted by the equivalent of the homeland security staff at the airport.  I feel sorry for these employees because their job is stressful–they are always having to yell out the same instructions, no one wants to be there, and they have to do the best they can with it all.  There are two lines, the short one for ladies on the right and the long one for men.  You must empty your pockets into a plastic tray and have them x-ray your bag.  I forgot to take out the change from my pocket and set the metal detector off and got a pat-down but it wasn’t a big deal.  Make sure to have your jury duty paperwork if you are bringing a laptop because it’s your ticket to being able to bring it in.

The entrance is on the south end of the courthouse building in the glass atrium area between the two buildings

Going up to the Standby Jury Waiting Room

My Jury Panel Number

Bide the Time

Lunch Time

Panel Number is Called

Finally at 2:40 pm my panel number was called.  You pack up all your belongings and take them with you.  You are given a red juror sticker badge (the top image on this page) that you are supposed to wear.  Then a police officer leads you through the building, into the elevator, then down a hallway, and to a courtroom.  They then made us stand in the hallway for at least 5 minutes.  This was actually the worst part of it–just standing there waiting.  At one point the police man who lead us down to the courtroom asked us, “Do you want to know a secret?”  No one really knew if he was talking to them specifically or to the group in general so he didn’t get much of a response.  Someone shyly said yes though.  He then responded, “Don’t look like you are mad or you’ll get picked.”  It was kind of funny what happens inside you after being asked that question.  I think everyone inside was thinking, what do I look like right now?  Is my plain face a mad face or a happy face?   And then you try to practice your smile.  I found myself doing it.

Entering the Courtroom

Finally they came out and started calling names.  I didn’t know it at first but the order they called you was important.  They made us sit in the courtroom starting in the back left row and fill in to the right and then the second from the back row starting from on the left and filling in to the right.  They filled up the 30 chairs in the juror section of the court room and then they had two more rows in front of those and then everyone else was behind the glass windows in the courtroom audience area.  I happened to be the 3rd person called.

After we all entered the prosecuting attorneys and the defense attorney and the accused came in and then the judge and clerical staff and the bailiff.

Questioning Time

The judge then does some explaining, shared about the case (in our case the guy was accused of selling less than a gram of heroin), and eventually they ask everyone to stand, raise their right hand, and promise to tell the truth.  They then go through a bunch of questions.  I didn’t write them down so I’m sure I won’t be able to recall them all.  Here are some of them.

• Have you ever been arrested?  The judge prefaced this question by sharing that she hates to have to ask this.  It was a bit awkward.
• Do you know the accused, any of the witnesses, or any of the attorneys?  (and they list their names)
• Do you know any police officers, attorneys…?
• Have you ever been a juror on a civil or criminal case?  If you said you’d been a juror in a civil case they pointed out that the burden of proof is greater in a criminal case.

At one point they asked us all to tell them a little about ourself.  We were to tell generally where we live and what we like to do.  The judge was friendly and would ask questions to draw people out.  If you said that you liked to cook she’d ask you what you favorite dish was to cook.  One guy said he liked a particular car magazine so she asked him what his favorite car was.  He replied, “a ’67 Impala.”

Waiting

There was a lot of time to burn after we were questioned, while they individually pulled people aside.  I wish I would have pulled out my reading material during this time but I didn’t think it would be that long, but it was.

Reverse Engineering the Process

As they questioned us I was always trying to figure out why they were doing what they were doing.  I figured out that the attorneys had sorted the juror’s ahead of time based on how we had answered the questions on our juror summons.  I assumed that they ordered them in the order they wanted to pick them and then were going to try to ask questions and use their intuition to eliminate people from the list and make their final pick.  Pretty much the whole time I thought for sure I was going to be picked.

Break Time

They allowed us to take a break and use the rest rooms at one point.  I remember observing people and there was one guy that commented, “Man, they have been stringing that guy around since January for less than a gram of heroin–can you imagine that?”  I remember thinking to myself, “Now that is a guy the defense would want to be on their jury.”  He was sitting in like the 4th row when we were put in order.  It was funny because they had picked up on him and he WAS selected!

More Questions

Some of the prospective jurors had answered that they had been arrested.  Almost all of them were called aside at this point and taken into one of the halls off the courtroom and were questioned privately.  None of them shared what they were being asked.  I think I remember one of them saying that he couldn’t say.

The Jury Selection

Finally at almost 5:45 PM they all of a sudden started announcing their selection.  Lucky for me, I wasn’t picked.  They didn’t pick most of the first 5 and they picked almost all of the people who had been arrested and were pulled aside.  And they picked that guy who took offense to the guy being strung around for almost a year for less than a gram of heroin.  They had all the people they chose go into a room and they dismissed the rest of us to the hall where we came in to get our jury duty checks.

Pay Day — Not

It took quite a while before they finally handed out the checks and they only had about half of the checks the first go-around.  It is a bit of a joke to have to wait around for a measly $17.20.  Why pay us anything?  I mean seriously.  You do want to stick around and get your check though because the stub on it is your receipt that you did your jury duty for this year and if you were to get called in less than a year you could show your stub for proof that you don’t need to show up.

Standby Jury Duty Paycheck $17.20 and Jury Service Receipt

And that was my standby jury duty experience–hopefully it helps you prepare for your day of serving our country.