A 21-year-old man in Florida served 10 days in jail after he accidentally slept in and missed jury duty in a civil automotive accident negligence case.
Deandre Somerville was sentenced to 10 days in jail after he overslept for his first day of service as a juror at the West Palm Beach County courthouse in late August. Somerville said he woke up too late and missed his ride, so he headed straight to his job, where he works part-time as a recreational leader at a park not far from his home.
Three weeks later, police arrived at the home Somerville shares with his ailing grandfather and arrested him. “I should have called, and I own up to that,” Somerville said. “I made a mistake, but I didn’t know I would go to jail. They don’t tell you that if you miss jury duty you go to jail,” he said. “I don’t even have a criminal record.” He said that as he was being arrested, his grandfather encouraged him to “go in and be honest.”
He readily admitted to the judge that he had made a mistake by sleeping in and asserted that he “didn’t know the seriousness of it, to be honest.” Circuit Civil Judge John Kastrenakes had little sympathy and dressed Somerville down for his negligence and carelessness. The judge noted that Somerville’s absence caused the trial to be delayed by 45 minutes, and that he had been the only black person to be selected on that jury.
“Your intentional, willful failure to follow the orders of the court is a serious matter,” Kastrenakes said. The judge convicted Somerville of direct criminal content and, in addition to the jail time, ordered him to 150 hours of community service and one year of probation. He also ordered that Somerville pay a $223 fine and write a letter of apology to the court.
“I’m dead serious about this. Dead serious,” Kastrenakes also said. “If you don’t do the community service hours as I’ve ordered, you face up to six months in jail, all right? This is just a taste of jail and it’s not that long. You’ll do this 10 days and then you’ll come out and you’ll do everything on probation. I’m going to monitor you, make sure your probation is — you adhere to all the rules and conditions of probation.”
Somerville described the judge’s decision as “shocking.” “For me it was like, dang, it was the first time I go to a courtroom and the second time I show up I get jail time,” he said. “I feel like the punishment could have been probation or community service. Why did you have to throw me in jail? Because you assumed I was one way? It’s easy to throw someone in jail versus spending the time to really see someone and asking them how they work.”
“Twenty-four hours in a day felt like 48 hours in a day,” Somerville said. “All I could do was think, being around criminals, now I am a criminal for doing something that’s not even a real criminal act. I had to tell myself, I am not a criminal. Those 10 days were long and traumatic days.”
