I think this is the 10th time I’ve been called for jury duty. Is that any kind of record? I must be on some kind of list subset. Even though selection is supposedly random… “Prioritize select from this list of people who have served before and actually respond to our notices.”

@stop I have been picked for and actually served on juries three times now. All have been interesting experiences, and seemingly, outside the norm of typical court cases.

@stop I have not attempted to get out of jury duty since. 😳

@stop For one case (corporate law dispute), the defense attorney was so ill-prepared, fumbled through an opening statement, sent papers flying everywhere. The next day, after waiting over an hour to start, bailiff came in to tell us it was a mistrial (defense attorney went missing).

@stop Another case was a criminal trial for a guy who was delivering weed as a bike courier. CA had just legalized pot for medical use 2 years prior (’96), so his defense was that all customers were actually patients claiming medical use.

@stop Case lasted for 3 weeks. Fascinating witnesses, many of them his customers. When trial ended, we went to deliberation. One of the jurors refused to cooperate, and left the deliberation room without permission from the bailiff. For some reason, our alternates weren’t present.

@stop Police brought escapee back two hours later. Judge called us into the courtroom, including bailer, lectured us, and eventually declared a mistrial. Whole thing would be tried again with a new jury. We, as jurors, were pissed for all that time we served, with no resolution.

@stop Anyway, all that to say… I know getting called is often a huge inconvenience. But if you ever get a chance to serve on a jury, it’s a huge learning experience, and an eye opener about how our justice system actually works (or doesn’t, in some cases).