Jury Duty | swans on tea

I’ve been summoned for jury duty. While I hope I get an interesting case, like one involving entropy cops arresting someone for violating the second law of thermodynamics, or the symmetry squad nailing someone on a CPT violation, I know I won’t. They always seem to plead those out.

UPDATE: Much ado about nothing for the first day — I’m still on call for next week. Lots of sitting around and waiting, until finally called in as one of the B-list prospective jurors for one trial, and caught the second half of the voir dire. They ended up with 12 from the original crowd, and apparently all the other trials were done selecting by the time the lunch break was over. So I was set free a couple of hours early.

But I did hear the prosecutor warn that CSI, Law & Order (duh DUH, or is it DUH duh?), et. al are TV, and the jury shouldn’t presume anything from TV would carry over into reality. And the defense’s line of questioning spelled out what the defense strategy would be, and I’m pretty sure that I would have been excused.

0 thoughts on “Jury Duty”

Don’t worry; if you make sure they know you’re a scientist, they likely won’t want you on the case anyway. True story: When I was called to jury duty while in graduate school, I was in the ‘hotseat’ for questions during jury selection. The plaintiff’s attorney looked at me, and said, “It says here you’re working towards your Ph.D. in physics.” “Yes.” “So you’ve got your bachelor’s.” “Yes.” “And you’ve got your master’s.” “Yes.” “Your honor, this juror is unacceptable.” (Entire courtroom gasps; I grin and leave.)

tell them you’re biased against quantum tunnelers.

Jury selection is a funny thing. I was in a jury pool of 50 or so once and they settled just as we were starting the selection process. Everyone in the room was so incredibly happy to be done with their civic duty – it was as if we had saved the world at the end of a b-list alien invasion movie. That must say something about the process, right?

“But I did hear the prosecutor warn that CSI, Law & Order (duh DUH, or is it DUH duh?), et. al are TV, and the jury shouldn’t presume anything from TV would carry over into reality.”

In particular, you shouldn’t presume that the case you’re assigned to might be interesting! 🙂

gg on March 31, 2008 at 8:01 am said:

Don’t worry; if you make sure they know you’re a scientist, they likely won’t want you on the case anyway. True story: When I was called to jury duty while in graduate school, I was in the ‘hotseat’ for questions during jury selection. The plaintiff’s attorney looked at me, and said, “It says here you’re working towards your Ph.D. in physics.” “Yes.” “So you’ve got your bachelor’s.” “Yes.” “And you’ve got your master’s.” “Yes.” “Your honor, this juror is unacceptable.” (Entire courtroom gasps; I grin and leave.)
ecoli on March 31, 2008 at 12:17 pm said:

tell them you’re biased against quantum tunnelers.
Nick on March 31, 2008 at 1:58 pm said:

Jury selection is a funny thing. I was in a jury pool of 50 or so once and they settled just as we were starting the selection process. Everyone in the room was so incredibly happy to be done with their civic duty – it was as if we had saved the world at the end of a b-list alien invasion movie. That must say something about the process, right?
gg on March 31, 2008 at 3:16 pm said:

“But I did hear the prosecutor warn that CSI, Law & Order (duh DUH, or is it DUH duh?), et. al are TV, and the jury shouldn’t presume anything from TV would carry over into reality.”

In particular, you shouldn’t presume that the case you’re assigned to might be interesting! 🙂