A jury of your peers? I guess we will find out.

Jury duty awaits me next week. I think for many this exercise in citizenship would seem something to endure, like a dentist’s visit or perhaps a colonoscopy. Such feelings, I would like to think, pervade not so much because those called aren’t patriotic but instead have many things they need to do in their work or lives.

I look forward to jury duty and, regardless of the case, hope that I am picked. I feel that jury duty is one of the most important obligations a citizen has in this great nation. Of course, I also like courtrooms and courts and the oftentimes drama such a setting brings.

My guess is that I probably spent three-to-four years covering courts when I worked full-time as a journalist. These cases didn’t happen, usually at least, in a big-city setting although that didn’t make the drama and the community that was the courthouse no less interesting. For example,  I once had a huge chair thrown in my direction during court. I was once sued for something that I heard on the record in court and later wrote about it. I saw a court packed with uniformed police officers once in a show of solidarity, or force depending on who you believed, in a case in which a man was on trial for decking a state trooper and a deputy sheriff during a traffic stop. I have had judges wink at me to acknowledge an inside joke, or so I hope that was why they winked.

I also served on a jury — a worker’s compensation case — before my journalistic career began in earnest or East Texas, to be exact.

All above and other reasons are why it is highly unlikely I will be picked for this jury. I have been called four times previously and served once. Those who have served or even watch TV shows about court all know that in selecting a jury the lawyers on both sides will ask fairly standard questions which reveal any prejudice that the potential juror might have toward a defendant or plaintiff or prosecutor. Some examples:

Do you know or are you related to any police officers: Yes

Have you or a family member ever been in jail: Yes

Have you or a family member ever experienced any mistreatment or mishandling of a situation by the police: Yes

Do you generally like police officers: Yes

Have you ever been a plaintiff or a defendant in a civil trial: Yes

And so it goes. “Questions 67 and 68,” as a band once known as “Chicago Transit Authority” once sang.

My answers to these questions are no different than millions of other Americans. Since I covered both police and courts, I probably have more of an inside track on what really goes on from the time of a crime until the time a defendant is convicted or released. I say that, not meaning I have more knowledge than those who work in those systems, or that I know more than anyone else in particular. I am just saying that, for an outsider, I probably know a little more about those worlds that the average person. It is exactly for that and all of the above that I predict I will be excused from the jury Monday.

But you never know. I have seen some strange picks on the jury. If I am not on here during the early part of next week, you can figure that I was wrong about my prediction. And let me tell you, I have been really, really wrong about some matters in my life. We shall see what we shall see.