UNITED STATES-Let’s face it, jury duty is a pain in the you know what. It’s something that many of us dread and we attempt to avoid with every single fiber in our bodies, but sometimes you can’t avoid the impossible. Serving jury duty is a civic duty, but with all due respect how often is the ordinary person contacted to serve for jury duty. What I’m about to share with you may shock you, but I’ve literally been called for jury duty three times a year for the past five years.


Yes, sounds like something out of a horror movie, well trust me it is. I recall my first dalliance with the legal system back in 2005 when I was called for jury duty at the state level. I came down to the county building and sat in a room with a bunch of disgruntled people for hours before they informed me I was able to go home and my civic duty had been served. I was quite excited to say the least.


The next three years I received summons in the mail for jury duty, but considering I recently spent a stint at the jury courthouse I was excused. A few months later in 2009, I received a summons to serve in a federal court, boy was I peeved. I sat in a room for a few hours before being selected to be grilled by a judge and the prosecutor and defense attorney to decide if I was a worthy member to serve on a jury. I pulled out every single excuse that I could think of. I’m not a fan of the legal system, I have work, I was just blowing complete smoke, but it didn’t work: I was chosen! Darn! Now I’m stuck serving jury duty for a week, what made things worse it was a federal case, which meant I could have been serving much longer than I had expected.

My biggest concern was literally three-fourths of the jury could’ve cared less about the case, only myself and another party took the matter seriously. I mean this is a person’s life at stake, why are some people so callous about that? That is my concern with the jury system, we’re allowing a person’s fate to be sealed by everyday citizens who could care less what happens, they just want to be done with the whole thing as soon as possible.


To make matters worse, I couldn’t bring my cell phone, I had to pay for parking and it was just the week from hell, but I made it through. I was always told once you served jury duty, that’s it. Rarely are you called again. Not in my case. That same year, I received summons from the local and state government to serve jury duty. Luckily I just served on the federal level, so I was given a pass, but guess what I got three notices from each branch of government from 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.


I must be a popular person because my name just won’t leave that system. I’m all for serving my civic duty, but I feel I’ve done so more than I can count. Heck, I know people who don’t even work and they’ve yet to be called for jury duty. Why does it seem the people who are always being called continued to be called (yes, I’m referring to myself). I feel like the system repeatedly contacts me, knowing that I literally just served jury duty, might I add it was on the federal level, which supersedes local and state government requests. Can I please get a break?


Could I have been cursed? Did I do something that has continued to force me to see my name come up time and time again in the jury pool? Perhaps I should move I know what you’re thinking, “Really?” Yes, I’ve considered it as I can’t grasp the concept of having to serve jury duty once a year every year for the rest of my life or until the system deems I’m an unfit jury. The jury duty system has to be re-evaluated to give all citizens, those of age an equal shot at serving on a jury.


Not just that idea, but the fact that people take the matter extremely serious, this is not a joke, which is what scares me most about our legal system. A person’s fate is put in the hands of a person or people who can give two cents what happens. Now tell me what’s so fair about that?