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Jury Duty
I received a letter in the mail last week from the city. Inside I read that I have been summoned to appear for Jury Duty in mid-July. Lots of other information followed along with a stern warning that I better show up unless I am:
1) Dead,
2) Over 72 year old,
3) Mentally handicapped,
4) Not a citizen of Wake county,
5) A felon or
6) I have already served in the last two years.
So as you can imagine, I don't meet any of those criteria for not serving.
Okay, so I have to go, how much do they pay you for this? Haha. $12 for the day. If it lasts longer, they give $20/day for the next 4 days, and really long trials start paying $40/day on the 6th day. I looked up the Jury Duty FAQ for North Carolina and I learned that it's inappropriate to wear a halter top, cut-off jeans, or bring my knitting needles to court.
Trying to look on the bright side, I thought it might be somewhat interesting and I'd look forward to seeing how the jury-side of a trial works. Especially if this was a major trial, I'd love to see how detailed the deliberation is between everyone on the jury. I'm imagining it might be a bit like the movie Twelve Angry Men. But sure, it will probably be something much more pedestrian.
I mentioned my upcoming public service to a few friends and I was cautioned that I probably wouldn't actually be called to serve. Apparently one of the first questions the attorneys like to ask potential jurors is how much education they've had. So, I finished high school, I have a BS, an MS, and I'm working hard on a PhD. I'm not sure if this goes against a "jury of your peers" or if my education would intimidate the other jurors and give an unfair bias, or something else completely. We'll have to see how it goes. Maybe my education will "lead the attorneys or the judge to feel that [I] could not be objective in considering the evidence in this trial." Haha.
They better still pony up that $12.