The courthouse building itself is fine. There's a decent amount of parking, the restrooms are clean, getting through the metal detector and security scanner at the entrance is quick and not overly invasive, and staff are polite.
Having said that, no one visits the courthouse just for kicks so my review has to include my reason for being there (over and over and over again)- jury duty- and that's why there are three stars missing.
Even with pandemic precautions, this process feels remarkably inefficient and inconsiderate of the time, distance, and effort involved in doing one's civic duty. It took four visits to the courthouse before I finally learned I wouldn't be assigned to a trial and two of those visits seemed entirely pointless. For one visit I filled out a form that I easily could have completed online if it had been available and then was told to come back the next week. For my second visit, I sat there for a while and was then told to come back four hours later. In a pandemic, I am not sure why those two unnecessary visits couldn't have been streamlined. There's also minimal information provided while you're in the middle of this process so you have no idea if your life is now a Kafkaesque Groundhog Day of fruitless courthouse visits or if these trips have an end point. When I asked a clerk, she replied "It's up to the judge."
Speaking of the judge, he was pleasant and engaging and the bailiffs were friendly and helpful. Once voir dire (vwär dir, folks, please) began on my third visit, it all actually became very interesting though I felt awful for the folks having to answer brutally invasive questions in front of a room full of strangers. I also felt bad for myself for having to sit in a room with several people who hadn't mastered mask-wearing and had their masks below their noses.
Overall, I think the individual people in the system are doing their best to keep the system working within highly abnormal conditions but the process is antiquated, inefficient, and, in a pandemic, risky. read more
