We all have an interest in seeing it done...

and done properly.  We are all better off when this system works as it is supposed to work.  And most of us want nothing to do with it if we can possibly avoid it.

I'm referring to jury duty.  How many of you avoid it if possible?  How many of you do avoid it by using whatever means necessary?  There's a woman in Colorado who went further than you've ever done and it came back to haunt her.

Susan Cole showed up for jury-duty with curlers in her hair, shoes that didn't match, and looking quite disheveled.  She claimed to suffer from PTSD due to domestic violence and was excused from jury duty.

A few months later, the judge who let her off the hook was listening to the radio when he heard a woman bragging that she'd avoided jury duty by faking mental illness.  Now Ms Cole has pled guilty to second-degree perjury and attempting to influence a public official.  She may avoid being labelled a convicted felon, but she will have a misdemeanor conviction on her record, must serve two years probation and perform 40 hours of community service.

I have issues about jury duty, many of which have been resolved with changes by the system.  The first time I did jury duty was at the Inglewood Court and I spent ten days there sitting in the jury duty room all day.  We were summoned for a panel only once and I didn't make it into the questioning phase.  The second time I had jury dut I spent three weeks on the jury of a murder trial.  There was one other ten day session of sitting and waiting in a jury room and one other where there was a short trial.

Then came the one that really torqued me off.  I was summoned to serve at the Compton Court House.  I ended up in a jury pool on the first day.  We were questioned, seated as a jury and then the court adjourned for the day before anything else happened.  We were told to return the next morning at 9.

Only when we showed up, we were told (after waiting a bit) that a plea deal had been reached after we left, and they couldn't call us to tell us about it because the civil servants who ran the jury room had already gone home for the day.  Apparently no one else knew how to reach the jurors.  Worse yet, they didn't want to give us our day's pay and mileage for that day, which we ended up getting.

If I get a jury duty summons I'll go.  I think it's part of our civic duty.  But I understand the mentality of those who don't want to go near that system.  The on-call system is a vast improvement.

When accused of a crime we're supposed to be judged by a jury of our peers.  If the best of us all find ways to avoid serving, that's not going to ever happen.