r/nottheonion • u/ArgentineBeauty • 19h ago

Reese Witherspoon Chosen as Jury Foreman After Jurors Thought She Went to Law School Because of Legally Blonde

https://www.fashiontimes.co.uk/reese-witherspoon-jury-duty-mix-1763528
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u/magnus150 18h ago

I genuinely want to participate in the civil process at least once in my life and see how it works. Yet despite being called for jury duty 3 times, I was never picked.

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u/DMAW1990 18h ago

You're closer than me. I've never even been summoned. I want to sit on a jury once in my life so badly, I feel like it's an important part of being in our society. Meanwhile, I have a parent that has been summoned several times (always gets themself dismissed) and a grandparent who sat on a jury for a murder trial. They saved the newspaper clipping that announced the verdict and we found it after they passed.

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u/ShinyPatina 16h ago

I've been summoned 15 times in my life (in my city you get summoned pretty much every year) and I have been selected and served on 7 criminal jury trials (two murders, two attempted murders, one possession of a firearm, one rape, one arson) . It's not as fun as you may think it is although it is a very interesting experience the first time or two.

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u/mainman879 16h ago

What the heck how are they summoning you that often? Is there no cooldown for that? In my state you are exempt from jury duty for 4 to 8 years if you sit through a case.

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u/ShinyPatina 16h ago

No such luck, here in my city you can be called once a year for jury service if you served on a trial for fewer than five days, OR once every three years if you served on a longer trial. Womp womp.

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u/JyveAFK 14h ago

Yeah, I'm curious too. My mum gets the letter... about once a year. Tries to wiggle out of it, either does with health issues or doesn't get picked once she's psyched herself up to be there "Can I start with an easy one?" "no...". I've never once been summoned. A mate got summoned only recently for the first time, and it was a full on doozy murder trial that was in the news.

I get you'd not want to influence the trial itself, but feels like there should be some method to start jurors in easy, or go by their education level on the TYPE of cases.

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u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 14h ago

I've never been summoned for petit jury but I was on a grand jury once a couple years ago. That was honestly fun. Every Wednesday for three months I got to miss work and 90% of the days we were done by noon.

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u/lIllIlIIIlIIIIlIlIll 14h ago

I think my fellow juror had the best description of it: "It's like watching paint dry with explosions."

It's mostly boring. But the interesting parts are really interesting. But it's mostly boring.

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u/GoldenPigeonParty 17h ago

I'm 0 for 2 myself. Feels like they weed out anyone that can suspend emotions for logic.