Thoughts on jury service

Serving on a jury is exhausting. I wasn't the only one of the jurors who remarked on this.

I also noticed something that I'd never noticed before in all those TV and movie depictions of courtrooms. Perhaps I'd seen it, but only noticed it now when I had a unique perspective. You always see the "All rise!" when the judge enters the courtroom, but you never see the "All rise! Jury entering the courtroom." At which point, the judge is also standing for the jury. This is a detail that's impossible not to notice as you walk in and see the judge standing and regarding you respectfully.

And this embodies one of the things I love most about this country. We, the people, are not the subjects of some some authority, but rather we are the authority. There is no member of an elite standing in judgment of us, we judge our own.