JURY DUTY, AND DEJA VU, FOR EX-JUDGE

He Tired of Drug Cases.

CAMDEN - When Stephen Orlofsky quit his lifetime appointment as a
federal judge here last year, he said he had grown tired of presiding
over drug and gun cases, mundane affairs that used to be the province
of state court.

The statement rankled some fellow members of the bench and bar,
including the chief federal judge in New Jersey.

So in what many - even Orlofsky - are calling ironic justice, he was
compelled last week to sit in judgment of a minor drug case in, of all
places, Superior Court in Camden County.

As a juror.

The Cherry Hill lawyer was one of a couple of hundred county residents
called for jury duty, and he felt confident that no attorney would
want a former federal judge on a jury. But by the time the clerk
called Orlofsky's name in the trial, attorneys on both sides had run
out of peremptory challenges.

So Judge Linda Baxter named Orlofsky Juror No. 12.

The jury also included another unlikely member, Craig Oren, an
environmental law professor at Rutgers University-Camden.

The jury convicted the defendant of cocaine possession after
deliberating 45 minutes.

For their services, Orlofsky and Oren, who earn six-figure salaries,
will be offered the standard rate of $5 a day for two days of service.

The two said they had come away impressed with everyone.

"It was a great experience," Orlofsky said.

Great enough to consider returning to the bench to hear such cases
full time?

He said with a sigh: "You know the answer to that question."