Over the period of the last 25 years I’ve been called up for jury duty four times. I’ve been impanelled twice (one criminal case and one civil case) and been dismissed after cooling my heels for a half day twice.
Actually serving on a jury is an interesting experience. I recommend it.
I have been called in three times in the last 15 years. Sent home twice without even talking to anyone. The third time, as soon as I told them I was a physician, the lawyer stopped asking questions. I went home again.
OT, but this Cowen piece was good I thought. Put it on your list of topics if you think it worthy. I hope he does follow up.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/03/has-regulatory-uncertainty-slowed-the-economic-recovery.html
Steve
I’ve been called once since moving to the city where I live about 17 years ago (10 years at the same house). Never served, but I found the video about the trial process very interesting. (At one point the video attempted to answer concerns about how litigious our society has become with statistics from lawsuits filed per capita in the Massachusetts Bay colony. )
I’ve been called up 4x times. 3x times was dismissed with the other people in my group altogether. The remaining and first time was there for 10 days and did nothing but sit in a room and read. Very boring. Hated every second of it and if I still lived in that county would likely pretend I never got the summons again.
I’ve served on three petite juries (one criminal, two civil –and one of those was a med malpractice case) and one grand jury. I have to say that I found all interesting. Via my grand jury experience I came to understand that 1) your average criminal is a very stupid person and as a consequence, 2) most criminal cases are really protective custody cases.
Never been called because I move too frequently. Or they’ve heard something. Hmmm.
It’s probably for the best. I’d go jury nullification before I’d ever put anyone away on a drug beef. And I would decide all civil cases against the party with a bluetooth earpiece.
Heh, I think I’m going to steal those two rules.
“Heh, I think I’m going to steal those two rules.”
Ha! One more data point for the argument that a libertarian is a liberal who likes markets. 🙂