My faith in my fellow citizens is a little bit restored. I just finished sitting on a jury in what amounted to a four week trial. Amazingly, even though people were passionate in their positions, discussions remained civil and excellent points were made from various viewpoints that made us all think long and hard. They actually were convincing enough to get the majority of us to change our minds at various time during deliberations. In the end, I think we reached fair verdicts and our little cross section of America was proud of what we accomplished. Jury duty is definitely a worthwhile experience.

I agree It's worthwhile, though getting an interesting trial can be rare. I've served on many juries over the years.. My longest stint was 2 weeks - (awful civil case), but the jury worked well together thankfully.

This one was an assault and rape case. We were really fortunate to be in the courtroom were were in. The judge and the bailiff have tremendous people skills and are excellent at the positions they are in. They judge even did something my wife acknowledged she's never heard of. After the verdicts were read he had us return to the deliberation room so he could present each of us with a frame-able certificate of appreciation for serving as a juror and conscientiously fulfilling our civic duties.

After the defendant had been on the witness stand facing the prosecuting attorney I came away with another observation from this trial. That court reporter doesn't get paid enough to do what she does with the skill she has!

That is unusual. was it a long deliberation? Here in PA, it's thank you, see you in 3 yrs, buh bye.

Deliberation lasted two full days. From what I understand,though, he presents those certificates to every juror who serves in his courtroom.

Out here they can call us once a year but we don't always get called. It's just the luck of the draw pulled from the DMV and the voter registrations. I usually get the summons every second year but sometimes I'll get called 3 years in a row. Serving is one day or one trial. Sometimes that one day is served by being on call if needed. Often we check in by phone the night before and whole thing is dismissed at that point.

Ah, it's the judge. That's nice. The county here is every 3 yrs: on call for one week, then if called it's one day or one trial. They seem to nail me every 3 yrs on schedule.

I find the jury selection process interesting too. Prospective jurors are sent up to the courtrooms in groups or about 45 to 75 on criminal trials and there's usually a pool of a lot fewer for civil cases. This time we were really grilled by the judge and then by the attorneys. We almost ran out of people (we started with 47) before we had our 12 for the trial. That process really exposes biases, beliefs and perceptions, right or wrong.

A sideline funny event happened during selection. One guy seemed to have passed the muster but the prosecutor used one of her peremptory challenges at the last minute to dismiss him. His immediate reaction out loud in the courtroom was, "Oh, man! I never get picked!" That had everyone in the courtroom, judge and attorneys included, laughing. It was like he wasn't being picked by either captain for a grade school ball game.

Yep, the process to pick jurors is usually entertaining. I especially enjoy watching people actively try to get out from serving during this part, as they almost always underestimate how many hundreds of times the judge and lawyers have heard their kind of excuses.