Yours truly has been summoned for jury duty. A very official-looking envelope arrived in the mail last week. Inside this envelope were two official-looking pieces of paper. The first describing the particulars of the juror selection process, the second a juror questionnaire. Should a jury trial be scheduled from April 1st through June 30th of this year in Brookings County, I may be selected to serve on it. But first I would have to turn in the paperwork. And I expect I shall. In the name of civic duty and also because in bold type on the first sheet it says, knowingly failing to comply with this summons is a crime punishable by a fine, jail term, or both. Resistance wouldn't exactly be futile, but perhaps not worth the effort. And you know what they say about a guy who insists upon having a jury trial. That he's asking for his fate to be decided by twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. If his trial date falls between April 1st and June 30th, one of the idiots might just be me. The closest I've been to an actual jury was five years ago when I delivered pizza and eleven drinks to a deliberating jury at the local courthouse. Why eleven and not twelve remains a mystery.
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I received a notice for jury duty a few months ago. Since I have performed some very intense "civic duties" previously and having heard the line about twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty, I complied with the instructions. Yes, I complied. I sent in copies of the functional capacity assessment the showed my back will not tolerate sitting for more than forty minutes. I also sent in copies of the Veterans Administration decision to officially declare me crazy (PTSD) and also included a note stating that my mental health therapist thought that they should know about my Anxiety Disorder. Within five working days I received a letter stating that I would NEVER be considered for jury duty. It's framed. Good luck and if you get picked, may you be involved in something interesting.
Jeez, Ed, you could have disrupted the trial and made it much more interesting. Maybe ending up with a trial of your own. My hope is that if I do get picked for duty is that at the very least it's interesting. This is a little town so I may get to recuse myself for knowing the defendant or for having partied with the judge.
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