[jury duty.query]

[wispfox]

[also posted to ljgenie]

I've been summonsed for jury duty in ~1.5 months.

I suspect strongly that my difficulty with processing large chunks of spoken words will make me... somewhat unsuited for such a thing. I don't, however, have any proof of this problem.

Do I just tell them about my concerns, and let them make the decision? Or is there something else I ought to be doing?

I'm perfectly willing to try to go ahead and be on a jury. But I note that I have difficulty with meetings (generally ~1 hour long) if I can't take notes and play a game on my Palm, and even with _those_ aids, I'm exhausted after about 1.5-2 hours. And the pamphlet says I should expect to need to pay close attention for somewhere around 6 hours.

If I'm lucky, I won't be called for any trials, and it won't come up. If not, though, I have a strong suspicion that jury duty would entail the least pleasant and most exhausting mental activity I could possibly be doing, and will make me unfit for human company during the entire time I'm doing it.

I've never before needed proof of this problem, as I'm very good at avoiding situations in which it would come up. So I don't have any. And, much as I'm sure my mother (a school psych) would probably be willing to write something explaining the problem, she's related to me. So probably wouldn't be an acceptable source of such information.

Comments

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

When you go in, if they even actually try to impanel you, they'll sit you in a room with a mess of other people and ask you a whole bunch of questions to determine your fitness for the jury. Even if you feel everything else about the case is fine (the one I was called for was a sexual harassment case -- not a chance!), they always ask something like "is there any other reason you feel you couldn't be a fair and impartial juror?" and you could always raise your hand at that point. Raising your hand just means you'll get to explain to the judge and lawyers how you think it might be difficult for you to be a good juror.

So that's what I'd do :)