My civic duty

I spent most of yesterday at the county courthouse.

No, I wasn't there to pay a fine or cop a plea. Rather, I was among several dozen people who were obligated to show up by 8 a.m. for jury duty. This was the second time in about 2 1/2 years that I got the summons. As with the last time, I got as far as being in a pool of about 30 jurors who went through voir dire, the exercise where each juror offers some biographical information and describes his or her previous experience with the courts before the attorneys and judge decide which dozen people will be impaneled.

I got passed over and left the courthouse feeling more or less ambivalent. I get that doing jury duty is my civic duty. Obviously, we wouldn't have a judicial system without everyone taking his turn when called. Some people really whine about it -- about having to take time off work, about the inconvenience of traveling downtown (or to a suburban courtroom, if assigned to a trial there), about the boredom that comes with sitting for hours on end, waiting to be selected for a jury pool.

I can't say any of those are huge concerns for me, although the waiting around can be tedious. Heck, I even sneaked in a short nap at mid-morning, between reading a couple of magazine articles.

No, I think what I dislike more is the thought of some of my fellow citizens serving as jurors if I were on trial. Not to sound snobbish (I suppose there's no way to avoid it), but the prospect of my fate being in the hands of some of these folks is downright scary. Physical descriptions aside, I'm not greatly inspired by people with vacant stares and borderline hygiene poring over juvenile reading material (or none at all, which almost seems worse).

And judging from some of the questions and answers that came up during voir dire, it's clear some of these aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. Best line of the day came when a guy in his 30s, wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt and a thick black beard was asked to describe his hobbies and interests: "Drinking beer and shooting guns."

If I'd been picked yesterday, I would have been the only person of color in a 12-person jury that included just one woman. I was stunned at the gender inbalance, but less surprised about the ethnic/racial makeup, given the demographics of the pool. You'd think we were in Utah.

I couldn't help but speculate about why I was passed over. Did they think I might sway others given my job title? Hmmm, Sunday Opinion editor... Did they think I'd bring the perspective of a professional skeptic? I would have, for sure...

Who knows? Only thing that's certain is that I'll get another summons in another couple of years.