It never fails to infuriate me when someone comments about how they “got out of” jury duty, or conversely, complains that they couldn’t get out of it. When I served on a jury a few years ago I had to repeatedly rebuff friends and coworkers who tried to offer me their condolences. The judicial system won’t work if all the smartest people focus their efforts on shirking this responsibility. If I’m ever up on false charges, or in a dispute with a neighbor, I want my jury to be the brightest and best of the population. There isn’t a lot I can do to make that more likely, but there are a few things, and one of those is to heap scorn on those who try to wriggle out of jury duty, and praise those who make the effort to be the best jurors they can. Serving on a jury is a thing of pride, and anyone who tries to make it seem like anything undesirable is immediately told why they are wrong, and that I won’t participate in their “joking”. Otherwise we may fall back into Wizengamot-like political feuding where the powerful are above justice and the masses are beneath it.
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The jury system is liberty’s last line of defense. When the lawmakers and the enforcers and the judges align their power against you, a jury of your peers is the final defense against the abuse of power.
Although, even jury power can be abused. I know it’s not the issue you brought up, but I realized that I shouldn’t just gloss over that point.