Jury Duty Coming Up

From the juror instructions for Federal District Court:

What should I bring with me? What should I leave at home?

 

You should bring your juror identification badge, which appears in the middle of the left side of your summons, each day you report to the courthouse. The bar code is used to check you in at the jury office.[Barcoding jurors seems good--when I did jury duty in DC in 1970 or so we didn't have any badges.]

 

You must present a photo ID, such as a driver's license, when entering the courthouse. You and your belongings are subject to search. Please allow plenty of time to pass through security. It is very important that you arrive on time; if you are late, the entire case will be delayed. [Does this imply we're assigned to a case before we arrive? That's new to me but I see how it can work.]

 

Before they are assigned to a particular case, jurors often have to wait while important pretrial activities take place. [But this suggests we aren't assigned to a case??] You may want to bring reading material for those periods of time. You may also want to bring a sweater or jacket; the courtrooms are often quite cool.

 

For security reasons, you will not be allowed to enter the courthouse with cellular telephones, Palm Pilots, Blackberry e-mail devices, pagers, cameras, tape recorders, laptop computers or any other electronic device. [I wonder what happens to people's cell phones? Can they check them?  Pity the poor early adopters (and the mainstream these days) who use Kindle or IPad's for their reading.]

 
Potential weapons such as firearms, knives, pocket knives, scissors, letter openers, screw drivers, mace and pepper spray are also prohibited.

 This probably means little blogging next week, at least on days I have to go in.  Unfortunately getting to Alexandria from Reston is not easy.