One More Civic Duty for Mayor: Jury Service
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was cooling his heels in the dingy downtown criminal courthouse Wednesday morning, just another Joe Schmo with a jury summons.
It didn't matter that he had meetings scheduled with the president of United Airlines and the mayor of Busan, South Korea.
To the Los Angeles County court system, "indispensability at work" is no excuse for skipping out on jury duty -- even if you're the head of the nation's second-largest city.
And so, for what seemed like the first time in his 2 1/2 -month tenure, the mayor who prides himself on kinetic energy was engaged in that defining act of jury service: waiting around.
For a major portion of his four-hour stint at the criminal courthouse, Villaraigosa was parked on a bench in a crowded hallway, twiddling his cellphone, tapping his shoes and waiting to hear if he'd be assigned to a nearby courtroom.
His secretary, Cathy Finley, stood at his shoulder with a stack of binders stuffed with official city business. Members of his security detail briefed him on developing police matters.
But there was time to kill.
A steady trickle of fans stopped by, and Villaraigosa chatted them up. He hung out with reporters and made standard-issue small talk with other nonfelonious citizens who had been called to fulfill their civic duty.
"We've been here since the end of July," a juror named Francisco Coronado said after introducing himself.
"July?" the mayor said. "Oh, my God!"
It was good-natured commiserating, not a bitter complaint. Indeed, Villaraigosa said he hoped his presence would send a message about the importance of jury duty.
He said this was the third time he had been summoned in the last five years.
"Look," he said, "I tell people that serving on a jury is an honor and one of the most important obligations of citizenship."
That positive attitude may come in handy. Before his lunch break, Villaraigosa was told to report to a criminal courtroom Monday morning. There, prosecutors and defense lawyers may quiz him and even put him on a case.
The mayor said his last summons came about a year and a half ago, when he was serving as a City Council member.
He said he was nearly tapped to serve on a jury but was eventually dismissed because he knew the judge, the public defender and the prosecutor, raising potential conflict of interest concerns.
