Jury Panel at Fort Bend County
23-Jan-2001

Destinies, destinies, destinies.   I laughed about this one all the way home after leaving.  I always run into people I haven't seen for years or who I have never met but need to meet.

As you may know, you can reschedule jury duty three times without having to appear on contempt charge and pay a fine.  I missed the first duty on a last minute trip to Stavanger, Norway, missed the second duty on illness and I was nervous about missing the third because of a trip to Southeast Asia and Australia.   With good fortune the trip was post poned and I went down to Fort Bend County's Jury duty.  

There was only case on the docket and there was about 200 of us in a room.  The Bailiff said they needed 100 people for a four day jury panel selection process.  As some of you know, I have a full time job at Baker Hughes working four days a week at 10 hours with all Fridays off and I have a great side business.  I often work at night and handle minor emergencies during the day via internet / modem or go during lunch to my clients (it doesn't compromise my performance at Baker Hughes).  With this in mind, I thought to myself, "I Can't Be On This Panel!", but as fate would have it my name was called.

The Bailiff had all the people called that morning to sit on one side of the building.  The building was an old church which the county had purchased.  An aisle bisected the pews where everyone waiting to see if there name was to be called was sitting on the right side.  As my name, James Montz, was called I sat on the other side and the Bailiff waited for me to sit before calling the next name.

As I was sitting there in a very disappointed and in an angry mood for getting selected, the Bailiff called out Keith Palmer for the next panel participant.   My wife dated a Keith Palmer for 5 years during high school and college.  I thought that surely this would not be the same person.  Sure enough the guy was my age and sat next to me.  We have never met before or seen each other before.

During a break after the 100 person panel was selected I called Johnna on my cellular phone and told her what had happened.  No, I didn't introduce myself but it was tempting.  I could have had a lot of fun with this but elected otherwise.  After our break, the Bailiff announced that the lawyers in the civil case had settled out of court and our services were not needed.

As I walked out, I thought what are the odds of being selected for a jury panel with your wife's old boyfriend in a population of a million and half citizens and also sitting right next to him!