A three part series on what to do when you are called for jury duty
Part One: What Do I Do When I Get A Jury Summons?
You go to the mailbox one day, and find an “invitation” from your Clerk of Courts to report to the courthouse for jury duty. Actually, it is not an invitation, it is an order, with the power of the law behind it (and the threat that bad things will happen if you don’t show up). Many thoughts will cross your mind, but one will be “What should I do?” The answer to that is easy – go.
In my 33 years as a trial lawyer, I have talked to thousands of people who have been summoned to jury duty. The almost-universal thing those people have to say is “I didn’t want to go, but I’m glad I did.” Almost everyone who participates in a trial as a juror finds it was a better and more profound experience than they expected it to be. So why, in a country where we have the incredible privilege of participating in the best justice system in the world, is the first thought about jury duty “How do I
get out of this?”
First, let me acknowledge the realities. We are all busy. Few of us “have time” to spend days or even weeks away from our day-to-day responsibilities of job and family. Next, the specific timing is often inconvenient – no one asks “when would be good for you” before the “invitation” is sent out. And the details can be daunting. Courthouses are usually in inconvenient places, often in parts of town you haven’t visited, with traffic and one-way streets and bad/expensive parking. Once you find the courthouse, it is full of rooms, and lots of people doing lots of things – who knows how to find where you are supposed to be? Finally, the job of a juror is unfamiliar to you. Why me? What do I do? How am I supposed to decide things that the lawyers and judges haven’t been able to decide (if they had, there would be no need for a trial, right)? Are people/judges/lawyers/the media/my neighbors going to ask me a bunch of personal questions about all this? How am I qualified to know if someone is guilty, or negligent, or deserving of punishment or compensation? I
don’t know anything about the law!
But here’s the magic of this vital part of our American democracy – NO ONE is more qualified to be a juror than YOU are. The whole point of a jury of your peers is that we are judged by people just like you. In other countries, justice is handed out by dictators, kings, bureaucrats, and officials who live in various shades of ivory towers. Why those folks? Because the powers that be don’t want the power of justice to be controlled by people they don’t control. Here, we give that trust and power to real people, young and old, rich and poor; people who are the voice of their community, people who know what it is like to hold down jobs, raise families, and be invested in the future, people with a moral conscience, and with an inherent distrust of power. Justice depends on folks with common sense and compassion for their fellow woman or man. Justice depends on you!
Your service may last a morning, or a week or more. You will be paid next to nothing. Things at work and at home will not get done for a while. You will have to sit and listen to lawyers talk too much. You won’t understand everything that goes on, especially at first. You will have to make a hard decision, that will have important consequences, and you will never know for sure if you made the right decision. But here’s what happens if you don’t participate – there will be no justice. It’s been said many times, all that is necessary for evil to win the day is for good people do nothing. If you don’t do your duty, who will? If you abandon justice to
those who have nothing better to do, who want to participate as a form of entertainment, or who have an axe to grind, what kind of justice will we have? And if people like you don’t participate, who will be there for you should you ever need justice yourself? Many Americans have died to secure and preserve the right of trial by jury. Billions of people would give anything to have it. You have it. Jury duty is the most pure form of democracy any of us are likely to participate in. Do your part!
