Jury Duty

Posted under A Geek Dad's Life, Blog Posts

I am fulfilling my duty as a juror candidate for our local government.  This is my second time being called, and I have yet to be even questioned for consideration.  I’m starting to believe that lawyers never choose software developers to be on their juries. 

If you want more insight into how lawyers select individual jurors, read this article on how lawyers look for body language and clothing clues.

Read this for a the jaded-but-honest opinion of a fellow software developer who has vowed to never serve on a jury.

I personally welcome the chance to serve on a jury.  I consider myself a grounded, realistic, and reasonable person.  I value the role that juries play in our justice system, and I honestly believe that jury trials are one of the wondrous things about the United States of America.  That doesn’t mean that I enjoy the process.

This juror room (holding pen) is full of nearly 100 people just sitting around on the off-chance that the single felony trial on the entire docket might start this afternoon.  Why do they need all 100 people here for that?!  Why can’t they just do their random selection of 50, and let the other 50 go back to work?  They might not even start the darn jury selection for that trial this afternoon. (UPDATE:  They let us go after being there only an hour.  Un-fricken-believable.  The whole day blown up for one hour of sitting in a room.  Nice.)

The local businesses are losing money on this deal.  My employer pays for my time here, and the paltry $15/day that our justice system has deemed appropriate compensation for appearing for jury duty is a joke.  Parking is a very reasonable $3, and lunch downtown is $9, leaving $3 burning a hole in my pocket.

If we raised the fee paid to jurors to $50/day, we might see local governments doing a better job of managing our time.  As it is, the Jury Commission has no incentive to trim their juror pools.  Really; 100 people here in this room right now for one trial that might not even start today.  (UPDATE: 100 people whose days were interrupted just so that they could sit around a room for an hour and then leave.)�