He’s Doing Justice to Jurors : Courts: Bob Bowman is a godsend. The new magazines he delivers are a far cry from the dogeared, outdated ones found in other courthouses.

Although they haven’t completely turned the corner on boredom, jurors in Pasadena are certainly turning the page.

Those waiting around to be picked for trials at the Walnut Street courthouse can thank Bob Bowman’s periodical visits for that.

As he has done each week for eight years, 84-year-old Bowman wheels a cart loaded with free magazines into the jury assembly room every Friday morning.

These aren’t dogeared National Geographics or ancient Newsweeks, either. Bowman comes stocked with newsstand-fresh, never-been-read publications that cover nearly every topic imaginable.

They are post office discards--magazines that are undeliverable because of missing mailing labels or incorrect addresses.

The magazines stack up by the hundreds in post offices because publishers do not want to pay return postage on them. However, a little-known Postal Service regulation allows them to be given free to jury rooms and to certain nonprofit institutions instead of being destroyed.

Bowman began picking up undeliverable magazines from the Pasadena Post Office about 18 years ago. At first, he distributed them only in juvenile facilities where he worked for 35 years as a deputy probation officer.

One day, however, he stuck his head in the courthouse jury assembly room and asked if anybody there needed anything to read. Did they ever.

“We were relying on court employees and jurors to bring in their own old magazines from home,” said Cynthia Rendon, Pasadena district jury coordinator. “We had lots of 5-year-old Reader’s Digests with their covers off and magazines with the crossword puzzles all done.”

When told of Bowman’s deliveries, some of the 600 people called to jury duty each month in Pasadena rendered a favorable verdict.

“If these magazines weren’t here, it would be a looooong day,” said Kevin Garrity, a Glendale engineer who was spending his sixth day in the jury room waiting to be called to a case.

Laura Morris, a secretary from Altadena, said that, thanks to the magazines, Pasadena jury duty proved a nice change from her last juror’s stint. It was served at a Los Angeles courthouse.

“The few magazines they had there were mostly gone by the time I got to the rack,” Morris said. “Here, you have your pick. I read through about three different magazines a day when I’m here.”

Rendon said that in the past she has shipped surplus magazines from her jury assembly room to other courthouses. But that might not be necessary in the future: Court officials are starting to take their cue from Bowman’s work, she said.

Gloria Gomez, manager of juror services for county courts, said arrangements have been made through the Van Nuys Post Office to obtain undeliverable magazines for the county’s other 31 jury rooms.

A court system messenger has been assigned to make monthly pickups of discards. Court employees in downtown Los Angeles will divvy them up and send them to outlying courthouses, where 6,000 jurors a day congregate.

“It’s just a fantastic idea,” she said. “I feel magazines are absolutely vital in there.”

She said she wants to personally call and thank the Pasadena magazine man.

For his part, Bowman said he gets thanks enough when he sees jurors relaxing with his magazines. He said he can imagine how boring it can be sitting around between trials.

He can only imagine, Bowman says, because he’s never been on jury duty himself.

“I was called once,” he said. “But I had back problems and I got out of it.”