Unpopular opinion but we should all try to get jury duty instead of getting out of jury duty.

I have never been called for jury duty, but I doubt I would ever be chosen to sit on a jury. Despite the intent of the process, the lawyers on both sides are usually looking for jurors who are likely to be swayed by passionate arguments, not ones who will try very hard to make a logical decision based on whatever evidence is presented.

	▲	nostrademons 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I thought the same and even told my boss "Oh, I really doubt I'll get selected", but then not only was I selected out of the first round (despite going through like 80 people in the 120-person jury pool), I ended up as foreman. They're selecting for neutrality. What both lawyers and the judge all want to see is someone who doesn't have an opinion on the case before it begins. That neutrality could be a product of them being easily swayed by arguments, or it could be someone who is coldly logical and makes a decision purely based on the evidence presented. I watched about 65 people get dismissed, and what they all had in common was they were visibly emotional before the trial had even begun. That is what gets you dismissed. Meanwhile, about half the folks in the jury box didn't even realize that the fact that we were still sitting in the jury box meant we would probably be serving on the jury, we were still like "Oh, I'm probably going to get dismissed because I'm X kind of person and the lawyers aren't going to want X kind of person." If you can think of it that dispassionately, you are the type of person the lawyers want.

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BoxOfRain 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unpopular perhaps, but correct in my opinion. Rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin in terms of civic duty I think, if I was being tried for a serious crime I would much rather my jurors were people interested in seeing justice done according to the evidence than people who wanted it over with as soon as possible justice be damned. I suspect everyone in a country with juries would want that.

For what it's worth, I probably could have wriggled out of jury service on medical grounds but made sure to do the opposite.

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selectodude an hour ago | parent [-]

I agree but after watching voir dire filter out anyone semi-literate on more than one occasion, I don’t think it much matters. The juries are full of morons because that’s what both the prosecution and defense want the juries to be.

	▲	nostrademons 10 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Be careful confusing "has no opinion" with "moron". The voir dire process tries to select for people who have no opinion: it's specifically designed to filter for neutrality, because if the trial hasn't even begun yet and you have an opinion, that's a problem. There are some people - oftentimes very literate people - that mistake having no opinion for being stupid. It's very far from that. Oftentimes being neutral and keeping your mouth shut is the smartest thing you can do. There's frequently a popular image of someone who is smart as someone who is very quick to form judgments and articulate them with little information; this can be a useful skill in certain situations but is the opposite of what our legal system wants in a juror.
	▲	BoxOfRain 31 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Ah I think there might be a trans-Atlantic difference here and we're talking past each-other a little. I'm in the UK where jury selection isn't really a thing, selection is at random off the electoral roll and the filtering is mostly based on who has a good enough excuse to not do it.

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overfeed 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'd be fully support this if the jury allowance makes up for 90-100% of lost income (for any jurors that lose income).