Jury Duty in San Diego

Jury duty in downtown San Diego superior court - a few helpful tips and information not present in from the superior court's web site or information packet.

You can arrive to court by bus or trolley.. much more convenient and efficient than driving and parking (no free parking). The superior court is in a cluster of court buildings downtown, with a huge crowd of jurors coming in by car. The lots are expensive, but get cheaper if park further and further east towards the less "comfortable" part of downtown. San Diego's metro MTS schedules are incorporated into google maps so just have to put in your destination and choose "public transport" and your best route will appear.

The first part of jury duty is waiting in big lounge with couple hundred other potential jurors. If you want to work, bring your laptop and there is a "quiet" lounge where the TV is not running. The lounge (nor any other part of the court) has WiFi. Sorry.. so load up your stuff locally the day before. You can plug in your laptop and there is a telephone jack that says "modem" but I did not try it.

During the lunch break, you can visit the coffee shop one two blocks east to get free wifi. Subway is downstairs in the superior court building itself.

I only went through one jury selection process (~6 hours) rather than a trial. That, in itself, was very educational. Not only about the judicial process, but about the random sample of 50 citizens in our midst.

We had 50 potential jurors. The trial was about domestic violence. At least 20% of the group had some direct (victims) or indirect (siblings, parents, children were victims) to domestic violence. 20% ! Wow. Several had very viceral feelings that would prevent them from judging fairly and asked to be excused -- all truly seemed genuine. Everyone was uncomfortable. The judge (very impressive) probed everyone he could over the course of 4 hours and all of us were witness to treasure trove of personal information. There was both a former gang member (now reformed and working at an elementary school) and by contrast an FBI agent (gangs special agent). There were two male jurors who unmistakably mentioned domestic partners as opposed to wives (4% seems about right for metro region). Oh yeah, and the judge too, but I found this out later. There three scientists (one aspiring) and one armed pilot. Surprisingly, no one said real estate agent. Almost everyone was employed (may three who were not).. one juror's husband just lost his job on that day (she was excused from jury duty). Three potential jurors had DUI convictions.

It was very good statistical sampling of San Diego. Mix of seemingly well off vs poor. High education vs basic education. Latino vs white, black, etc. There was a lot learn about the cross section of life in San Diego w/r/t law and crime.

Before you leave, you can get a MTS pass .. free day pass. It's worth $5 to $10 depending on which route you take. Just show the pass and you have free ride on MTS whenever you want.