FundamentallySound Blog

DAY 2

-I just arrived at the courthouse, I'm going to try to get out of jury duty today by citing my travel plans at the end of next week. Hopefully this will work.

-In a comment yesterday my friend Rémi asked if jury duty in the US is just something that suddenly falls on your head without warning. Yes, it is. You get a notice a couple of weeks in advance and then you're expected to be there. That's when the selection really begins, the defense attorney and prosecutor interview everyone until they find who they want on the jury. I'd say there were about 30 potential jurors in the process yesterday.

-While waiting in the courtroom yesterday, I noticed how much time the attorneys spent looking at people, un-selfconciously. I wondered what they had been trained to look for. How does race profiling factor into it? Are there certain sizes of people that tend to be more or less sympathetic?

Do my new eyeglasses help or hinder my chances at being chosen?

update: I just got home from jury duty today. After the judge and attorney questioned me as a potential juror, the judge let me go because of my travel plans, now I'm free for at least another year. Yay!