Tomorrow at 8am I need to be at the Cambridge courts to do my civic duty as a juror. Unlike many states, Massachusetts allows nearly no exemptions from jury duty, instead instituting a "one day or one trial" system.
This means that you get called for jury duty more often, but are likely to overall spend less time on the panel -- and juries tend to be better qualified.
At least, that's the theory.
Although I don't expect to be sequestered, if I do end up on a trial, you may not see me for a bit.
Possibly, I'll get a chance to blog the experience, depending on what occurs. It's likely I'll just spend a boring day in a big brick box.
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As I sat around the jury room that morning, lots of people were talking about this trial and commenting that they hoped they wouldn't get called. Someone said that they'd heard the jury would be sequestered and that the trial was supposed to last 6-8 weeks. I doubted that, but it seemed exciting. Everyone kept saying, "Oh, I hope it's not me!" and "what excuse will get the judge to let me off?"
Pretty quickly, I realized that I was the only person in the entire room who wanted on that jury and that I was the last person who would EVER get picked to serve.
It didn't matter, though. As they called the panel, I wasn't on it. I ended up sitting on the jury waiting room for the entire week...reading, doing some embroidery, watching talk shows and wasting time.