I don’t think you’re being confrontational. I know the jury system is important. As I noted, I have had involvement as a juror in a previous trial.
The six weeks in question are close to the end of a two year project. I have been involved in this project from the start. Of course I’m not indispensable. Somebody else could do the work if I were sitting on a jury. But I’ll do it more effectively, and what’s more, I want to do it. It will be interesting from a professional point of view. I can’t see any particular issue in seeking to be excused. I’ll just go back into the prospective jurors’ pool and receive another summons in a few months’ time anyway.
It’s the other way round. I’m an actuary. I subsequently did the law degree, partly for its application in my work, but also just out of interest.
An update: the Sheriff’s office did not accept my law degree as a reason to be excused. And due to an extension in the dates of my major work project, I didn’t really have a work-related reason to seek an excuse. So I turned up, as required. I had already had a quick look at the trial listings in the Supreme Court and discovered that it was a murder trial.
There was a large pool of prospective jurors - well over a hundred. So I knew that my chances were slim. Even so, I was selected and had to go into the jury box. But then I was challenged by the Crown and I was off the hook.
I was up for a murder trial of similar length also. I had to go back 3 times, but I wasn’t called up by the time they filled the jury, so I was safe.
The judges I had to deal with took a very dim view of work excuses. It would take a letter from a high exec saying you were invaluable to the company - a standard not many of us would meet. Too many people tried to get off by saying work would explode without them for that to work anymore.
I also have not seen people with expertise in a given field challenged. I’ve never been. In one case I was on, a guy who was an expert in the area of the trial, and had served as an expert witness, was only excused because he refused to agree to leave his expertise out of the jury room.
In NZ, prospective jurors will now have to nominate a time in the next year when they can serve if they ask to be excused from the week they have been summonsed for.
I’m not sure if that will make jurors more representative of the general population, but it may make them more pissed off.
I loved it when Homer Simpson was called to jury duty. He says, “Jury duty?? I’ll see to it that guy FRIES for this.”
In Illnois seeing how many juries have sent people to death row and how many times DNA evidence has got the “Found guilty” party off, I have little faith in juries. Then again it could just be Illinois, we are pretty much a bunch of corrupt people
I was called for Federal jury duty, and there was a moron there that actually did show up drunk. Plus, he was carrying two more bottles of booze in a carry-on type bag.
He was quite obviously inebriated. Federal marshalls escorted him out of the room.
