OK, Gauguin, see, here is how it works. I told you I am a trial lawyer, right? Anyway, you have to go to jury duty, unless you qualify for an exemption. I am not going to tell you how to get out of it, I think it is your civic duty to do it. But, I will tell you what it means to have someone like you on a jury, and maybe it won't seem so bad.
It is the selection process I want to focus on briefly. Let's assume that the prospective trial is a criminal matter. You may well be the most intelligent, educated person in the group of people from which the jury is to be selected (called a venire). I don't know what you look like, but if I were defending a criminal, I would probably want you on the jury, not because I thought you'd be lenient, but because I thought you would be fair.
If I were representing a plaintiff, which is what I do, I would definitely want you on my jury, because I am sure that I would feel rapport just looking at you, that you were kind, and interested, and decent.
I can't tell you how awful it is, to have worked months, years, on a case, to have a lot of money riding on it, something that makes a real difference to the plaintiff's life, and draw a jury that just looks at you like a row of crash-test dummies.
The system can't work fairly, buddy, without people like you.<eom> |
