A couple of months ago, I was summoned for jury duty. I was immediately sympathized with by friends and family, but I actually found the concept interesting: I’ve never (thankfully) had any major run-ins with the court system myself, so I’ve always been fascinated by it. What really happens in those courtrooms? Is it like Judge Judy? What does a courtroom even look like? Would I be called upon to decide whether someone had murdered someone?
All these questions and more simmered in my mind as jury duty became increasingly inconvenient. My original summons date was for the week of my dissertation defense, so that had to be rescheduled. The next date I had another trip planned the following day. I found myself, like (I assume) everyone else, calling my mom to find out what to wear so I wouldn’t get picked. I did a lot of googling, too—some people said that wearing logos would mean you wouldn’t get picked, others recommended religious jewelry. There was still a small part of me that wanted to see what it was like, though. Besides, I had to doubt that these eHow articles were truly written by jury-duty-unpicked experts. Finally, I showed up, wearing my usual religious necklace but in a tasteful pair of jeans.
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