Jury Duty is slavery!

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dear gods, volunteer juries would be composed of the most self-righteous segment of a community. What a frightening idea.

Not registering to vote is a good way to avoid jury duty. If it's already too late for that, just tell them you believe in jury nullification.

I told a judge that I have autism and that I don't trust cops (the case was one where a cop was the star witness) and he excused me. When I was called a year later I got a letter from my psychiatrist that said that he is treating me and he didn't feel that I was suited to serve on a jury, and I got a permanent pass. One advantage to having an official dx is that they usually don't want people with mental or neurological issues on juries because if one gets on there's a good chance of the case getting thrown out on appeal, so if you officially have autism and a doc says so you usually can get excused.

There's no national service or draft requirement in the US, although a law was supposedly passed by Obama to require national service it was never implemented. Some countries don't excuse ANYBODY from the army, others if you're unstable enough you can get out. I believe that voluntary national service orgs in the US like Peace Corps and Americorps don't allow anybody with mental/neurological problems, so if mandatory national service was ever implemented it would likely be the same.

A compromise of individual liberty is always the price of living within a society. The trick is to strike the right balance where the least intrusion is imposed in exchange for the maximum benefit.

The principal of trial by jury is one of the central components of the Common Law legal tradition, and has reprsented a bulwark against the unbridled power of the State for over eight centuries. To suggest that the obligation to serve on a jury is akin to slavery is, to my way of thinking, laughable. Yes, it is a compulsion, but it is a compulsion that carries with it an enormous benefit.

That being said, I think that in the United States the system has come somewhat off the rails. The proliferation of civil jury trials imposes an enormous burden on potential jurors that goes well beyond the constitutional function of the jury to stand between the Court and the State which created and funds it. The State has little direct interest in the resolution of an individual dispute between private litigants, and justice could well be served in private law matters without resort to a civil jury as a trier of fact.

If people refused to serve on juries, then there would be no trial by jury, and agents of the government, i.e. the judges would have complete control over judging the facts. Or even worse, there would be no trials, just police or executive action.

ruveyn

being a citizen is a responsibility as well as a right.