When people don't show up for jury duty, should we track them down and “punish” them, should we do nothing, or should we thank them?
I learned a few important life lessons during the one-and-a-half years that I taught math to a student population that was struggling in various ways. In particular, I learned that “threats” from an authority figure in any manner of speaking almost always accomplish either nothing or the exact opposite of what the threatening party hopes to accomplish. Instead, things are accomplished by working with people by using encouragement and positive reinforcement, and most importantly, by treating people like human beings. I don't want to take up space with examples or personal anecdotes. Instead, I will apply the concept to jury duty.
If a person receives a jury summons and doesn't want to serve for whatever reason, we should actually be quite grateful if they choose to ignore it. I see no benefit to society if an angry person who is “forced” to serve is sitting in a jury waiting room with his/her arms folded, patiently waiting for his/her turn to weasel his/her way out of a case by demonstrating bias, or by acting like the proverbial “harmless crackpot.” I also see no benefit to society if a nervous or anxious person is sitting in the waiting room desperately counting every moment until s/he will be set free to return to whatever setting will make him/her comfortable, and/or set free to return to whatever responsibilities s/he had to temporarily leave behind (e.g., employment, taking care of a child or sick relative, etc.) Again, such a person will most likely take whatever measures are necessary to be dismissed as rapidly as possible.
What should we do about a person who could reasonably serve on jury duty without any true hardship in any sense of the word, but who simply doesn't give a damn about the entire matter? Maybe the person is not community-minded. Maybe s/he is selfish, anti-social, and disgruntled. Maybe s/he just wants to play video games all day in his/her mother's basement, and is barely even aware of anything else. Maybe jury duty is simply the farthest thing from his/her mind, even if the court needs jurors for a case in which an alleged serial killer will be released right back into the prospective juror's own neighborhood. We can't force people to care, and we can't force people to perform a cognitive and intellectual task. At best, we can force people to “fake it,” and to “go through the motions.” We have no way of even proving that the juror in question was paying attention to and/or has completely understood a case since jurors are not asked to support and defend their verdicts either verbally or in writing.
As a teacher, I learned that gentle encouragement usually works well. Idle and ambiguous threats, especially if they are difficult if not impossible to follow through on usually accomplish absolutely nothing, and often just make matters worse. I would like to see a future in which jury waiting rooms are filled exclusively with people who are not feeling “tortured” by being there, and who plan on answering all questions honestly as opposed to using tactics to be released as quickly as possible. This will be a huge savings to taxpayers because a judge and government-employed attorneys will not have to listen to endless juror BS. It will also allow the government to “save face” by not having to include vague and ambiguous threats on jury summons that most people know are impractical to follow through on.
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If a person receives a jury summons and doesn't want to serve for whatever reason, we should actually be quite grateful if they choose to ignore it. I see no benefit to society if an angry person who is “forced” to serve is sitting in a jury waiting room with his/her arms folded, patiently waiting for his/her turn to weasel his/her way out of a case by demonstrating bias, or by acting like the proverbial “harmless crackpot.” I also see no benefit to society if a nervous or anxious person is sitting in the waiting room desperately counting every moment until s/he will be set free to return to whatever setting will make him/her comfortable, and/or set free to return to whatever responsibilities s/he had to temporarily leave behind (e.g., employment, taking care of a child or sick relative, etc.) Again, such a person will most likely take whatever measures are necessary to be dismissed as rapidly as possible.
What should we do about a person who could reasonably serve on jury duty without any true hardship in any sense of the word, but who simply doesn't give a damn about the entire matter? Maybe the person is not community-minded. Maybe s/he is selfish, anti-social, and disgruntled. Maybe s/he just wants to play video games all day in his/her mother's basement, and is barely even aware of anything else. Maybe jury duty is simply the farthest thing from his/her mind, even if the court needs jurors for a case in which an alleged serial killer will be released right back into the prospective juror's own neighborhood. We can't force people to care, and we can't force people to perform a cognitive and intellectual task. At best, we can force people to “fake it,” and to “go through the motions.” We have no way of even proving that the juror in question was paying attention to and/or has completely understood a case since jurors are not asked to support and defend their verdicts either verbally or in writing.
As a teacher, I learned that gentle encouragement usually works well. Idle and ambiguous threats, especially if they are difficult if not impossible to follow through on usually accomplish absolutely nothing, and often just make matters worse. I would like to see a future in which jury waiting rooms are filled exclusively with people who are not feeling “tortured” by being there, and who plan on answering all questions honestly as opposed to using tactics to be released as quickly as possible. This will be a huge savings to taxpayers because a judge and government-employed attorneys will not have to listen to endless juror BS. It will also allow the government to “save face” by not having to include vague and ambiguous threats on jury summons that most people know are impractical to follow through on.
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