Suffolk County Courthouse

DIRECTIONS!!!
(READ THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SPEND AN HOUR ROAMING AIMLESSLY AROUND THE STATEHOUSE…)
Ok — admittedly, I am not good with directions. BUT, I live somewhat close to this courthouse, and regardless I know the area pretty darn well. I was all prepared with my Mapquest open and was walking around when I guess because I was in between some tall buildings, BOOM. No Internet. And the thing is I really thought I knew where it was ‘pretty much’ and that I would see it once in the area but no, it is HIDDEN, and finally the 4^th person I asked — a cop — was the only one able to tell me where it is.
Anyway — if these people want potential jurors to show up and on-​time would it really kill them to type on their website or record on their pre-​recorded juror line what I am about to tell you here? I don’t think it would. In an case, read on:
Simply walk up Cambridge Street from the Charles St./MGH red line stop /​Whole Foods area towards City Hall (is that Bowdoin or State Street T stop you will pass on your left along the way? One of them) — the block before City Hall you will be able to take a left onto Sudbury or a right onto Somerset (don’t know why the streets are called different names depending if you take it right or left, but anyway)… Take a right onto Somerset, and in about 30 seconds you will then take an almost hidden left at a tiny blue sign into a plaza-​type area. The courthouse entrance is now on your right. SO simple — yet it is not on a main street.
You can also continue through the Sudbury/​Somserset intersection and you will arrive at the One Center Plaza on your right where the Finagle-​A-​Bagel and other shops are — there is a staircase here in the right you can go up that will lead you into the aforementioned plaza.
(Once the Gov’t. Center T stop is open again I guess this will be the closest one.)
Obviously adjust these directions based on which way you are coming from. It is right there in the shadow of the state house, but that’s a large building.
I can definitely also say that if you take the orange line to Haymarket you can cross the street and walk directly up Sudbury and cross over Cambridge to continue up Somerset.
PS: I have no review of the juror experience as I realized I technically live in Cambridge now when I got there — DOY! So I just filled out some paperwork with the very efficient employees then left. I know it says you have to get there at 8:00am SHARP but it does appear to be ok if you are a little late.

Save up your mobile data ahead of time, because you will have no access to wifi while you sit around in the jury pool. But you can get a toasted bagel with peanutbutter on it at the snack bar, so that’s pretty cool.

I had jury duty here, so my feedback is for that experience. I have served jury duty in Cambridge and in another state, as well, so I have some basis for comparison.
When you arrive for service, you’ll have to wait in line to have your paperwork checked. At that time, you’ll be assigned a number. It appears that they run through the numbers sequentially, so the lower your number, the more likely you’ll get to go into a courtroom and be considered for a jury.
Once you get your number, you go into the big room and sit. And sit. And sit. There will be an introductory presentation, including an incredibly cheesy movie in which various people enthusiastically declare they’d serve jury duty if called again (um, duh, you have to). Periodically, the court officer will return to the room and call a group of prospective jurors by number to go to a courtroom. The court officer also gave us a number of breaks, during which we could leave the courthouse.
Food and beverages other than water are not allowed in the jury waiting room, but there is a small adjacent break room where you’re allowed to eat. A small café is right outside the jury room, but I would recommend using one of your many breaks to get food at a nearby restaurant like Zo.
Jury duty is not my favorite way to spend a day, but there were a few reasons why it was better at Suffolk County Courthouse than elsewhere:
1. The courthouse is easy to get to and surrounded by places to eat and shop
2. The court officer gave frequent, informative updates about the different cases on the docket that day and our likely wait times before we could leave
You are not allowed to talk on your cell phone in the jury room, but they do allow you to step into the hall for calls, and they did not stop anyone from using the phone for data purposes. I’d heard that some courts don’t allow Kindles, but they didn’t inspect people here for devices or prohibit any that I noticed.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A REVIEW FOR THE COURT CAFE LOCATED IN THE COURTHOUSE, NOT A REVIEW OF THE SERVICES OF THE COURT OFFICERS OR ANYONE INVOLVED WITH THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM.
That being said, Fat G. coming in with a review of the Court Café. Court Café is the food shop they have on the second floor of the Courthouse. As soon as you exit the elevators, the Café is to the right of the Jury Pool room.
They sell sodas, coffee, make sandwiches and other foods. There is no immediate seating area for eating. It’s also cash only.
I tried them for 2 days. The first day I ordered their special, which was a BBQ chicken with shredded lettuce and tomato. It was a generic sandwich with generic ingredients, and the sauce was leaking through the paper wrapping they put my sandwich in.
The second day I got a breakfast pastry which looked like a cinnamon bun. It was huge, and tasted really sugary. Halfway into it, I found a dead ant on it.
The prices are dirt cheap, but you get what you pay for.
Check out the surrounding area and avoid this place like the plague, unless you’re super-​strapped for time.

They have the nicest toilet paper I have used in a public place. Charmin ultra-​ultra soft-​soft. Who says your tax money goes down the toilet?
It is a very beautiful courthouse. Come in during the first two weeks of the month, you can hear appellate arguments. Its fun.

I love jury duty and when I got called I was ecstatic. Nothing more orgasmic than exercising your constitutional rights, right? Yes!
When my case was settled on day 3 I was depressed, plunged into a sea of madness and desperation. I’d have to go back to work. Eat boring salads. Stare at the computer all day. Hear my boss talk.
I would not deliberate. And I wouldn’t sit in the juror box for hours and hours, derobing the trial lawyers in my mind. No longer would I sit on the courthouse steps in the morning, at that ungodly hour when justice prevails (around 8 am), or be led into the courtroom wearing some fabulous outfit and knowing it was me, ME, who had a life-​impacting civic duty to perform. No, it was all over, baby blue.
On a side note, the lead prosecutor, Mr. Leo Boyle, was amazing to watch and sexy in a civil suit, gray suit, intellectual sort of way. Apparently he’s somewhat of a famed lawyer, so losing my jury duty virginity for such a Law & Order experience was priceless. If there’s such a thing as a full-​time juror, someone let me know. Help a sister out!

I have gone to jury duty twice, once in Cambridge (Middlesex County), and once at Suffolk County Courthouse. I haven’t been seated on a jury. I really want to be seated, it’s been close, but it hasn’t been in the cards.
Suffolk County Courthouse is better than Middlesex. The art deco details are covered by crumbling posters for the government employees’ credit union and laughable fire escape routes, but if you look hard enough, you will see these details. And you will have time to look hard enough, because you will be sitting in that jury box with nothing to read for over an hour, contemplating whether you can be fair and impartial, thinking about Matlock, craving a hot dog… thinking about To Kill A Mockingbird, craving Gregory Peck in seersucker… wondering why people wear jeans and flip flops to jury duty, longing for a day when everyone wore hats and gloves. You will glare down the guy in the «Bangkok» t-​shirt (Mickey Mouse included) & shorts, who is typing away on his laptop, right in the front row — after everyone was told to put down their reading material while the judge is on the bench. Now he’s yelling at the bailiff, who asked him to turn it off: «we’re not doing anything right now, why can’t I surf the internet? What do you mean it’s disrespectful to the judge? I don’t care about him!» (exaggerated sigh, closes laptop, begins fidgeting.) This guy REALLY wants to be dismissed. Either that or he has extreme ADD. We’re getting a day off to just sit with our thoughts– and we’re getting dismissed at 1:00! Whiner. If I were the judge, I’d insist he sit for this trial. It’s a personal injury case and it’s going to last a week.
After an hour of staring at the bookshelves and light fixtures and thinking about an artistic era of American Progress, your coveted spot as «juror number 1» will be yanked out from under you and you will be sent back to the jury pool, which is in a significantly less interesting, over-​air conditioned room. However, it is next to a coffee stand. The woman working the stand is wearing a t-​shirt that says «REMIND ME WHY I CAME IN HERE?» Exactly.
But again, this option is better than the Middlesex courthouse. Middlesex has a cafeteria, but it’s on another floor — so you have to wait until your break. At least up here you can get a $.50 banana and eat it while you wait. And wait. And wait. Standing in line at 7:45, sitting in the pool all morning… you are beginning to feel empathy for Europeans, whose lives are spent «queueing up.» None of the clocks show the same time. You get herded around by people in uniforms with more information than you, up and down all sorts of elevators. In the right frame of mind, it’s fun — like an absurd game of municipal Clue, without the actual crime-​solving.
For some reason, the clerk overseeing the jury pool keeps apologizing to you for being here — as if it weren’t your civic duty. He gives you a nice long break. You can go outside into the concrete wonderland of City Hall plaza, get a cup of coffee (you don’t want what she’s serving in the courthouse), and watch suits and tourists mill around.
There’s an instructional movie. It’s like a civics movie from junior high, only more boring.
You’ll probably get to go home at 1:00.
Bring a book.