It’s not supposed to be the jury who gets locked up!
Brooklyn court officials forgot about two alternate jurors and left them sitting alone in a room for almost 12 hours — long after everyone else had gone home, sources said.
The alternates were left waiting in Brooklyn Supreme Court until 10 p.m. — even though the other six members of the jury had been dismissed at 4:30 p.m., a courthouse source told The Post.
“The UCS is aware of this unfortunate incident and is investigating it,” a spokesperson for the court said without offering any details into how the goof unfolded.
The two alternate jurors still came back to finish their job the next day as deliberations over the two-week civil trial continued, according to the source.
“They were there. They were stone faced. They participated,” the source told The Post.
The two alternate jurors had started their marathon day of jury duty on April 10 by watching the end of the trial.
Jury members then took a break for lunch, which ended around 2 p.m.
At 3 p.m. the two alternate jurors were placed in a separate room from the six main jurors for deliberations, according to the source.
Alternate jurors don’t deliberate with the regular jury because alternate jurors are only there to fill in if one of the regular jurors can’t finish their duty because of an illnes or other circumstances.
The other six jurors sent a note to Judge Inga O’Neale around 4:30 p.m. with a question. At that time, O’Neale dismissed all of the jury members and said the court would reconvene the next day to continue jury deliberations, according to a source.
But court officials apparently forgot about the two alternate jurors sitting in a different room. Typically a court officer or a clerk will tell the alternate jurors they are dismissed, according to multiple people familiar with the courthouse processes.
It’s unclear if the two alternate jurors finally had enough and alerted someone to their presence or if they were discovered by another court worker.
If the extended time suck didn’t already make the forgotten pair two very angry men, they’re likely to get paid the same amount as the other six jurors who left at 4:30 p.m.
Jury duty typically nets a $40 flat fee per day for both alternate and regular jurors – regardless of the number of hours that day a juror served, according to the New York state unified court website.