Last month, I wrote about being called for jury duty. I had to stop before the end of the story because I was in the pool of people who might serve on a grand jury, and the judge warned us that anyone chosen would have to keep the proceedings secret.
All I knew was I might have to spend every Wednesday from early May through mid-September listening to prosecutors try to convince us they had enough evidence to indict various people on criminal charges. That only raised my hopes, because unlike my fellow citizens I really wanted to see the process from the inside — even though none of the indicted would be named Trump.
The judge called each of us to the bench and asked if (and how) being impaneled would be a hardship. Although companies can’t bar employees from serving, several people had jobs where they couldn’t miss one day a week for several months without negatively impacting the business. Others were caretakers for sick or elderly family members. Some were excused because they weren’t fluent in English.
But there were plenty of retired folks like me who had no sufficient reason to avoid serving. I wondered if I’d end up on a grand jury with so many senior citizens that there was a running mah-jong game in the break room. Or worse, having to talk common sense with a couple of anti-government MAGA morons.
Alas, it was not to be. Judge Ribaudo emailed yesterday to say she had chosen others to fill the grand jury. There was no explanation of why she passed on me, though I speculate it’s because I started this paragraph with the word “alas.”