Last Sunday started my daily call-in for my jury summons. I called Sunday night— freedom. I called Monday night— don’t report tomorrow. Tuesday night’s call…

See you Wednesday morning, Mr. O’Neill.

If you’re like me, you’ve hated jury duty since they threw you into the system. You have that dreadful quake when you feel it lurking on the horizon. They haven’t summoned you for a while, and you know in your bones… They. Are. Going to Get You. Here in California, they can wrangle you once a year. It’s like your anti-birthday. Instead of blowing out the candles of your cake, you want to lick a Petri dish and catch that newest strain of the flu that’s got all the kids puking. At least then, you could watch Netflix from your bed.

Who doesn’t hate jury duty? You’ve been pulled out of your daily routine, you truck yourself down to the courthouse, and your workplace (likely) doesn’t pay you for your time off. You see your fellow prospective jurors and wonder if you’re as dumb as they look. How did you end up amongst these people? Then you see some happy-go-lucky bastard who’s eager to serve. You sneer, designing his whole biography. You think, “Must be nice to be so rich, self-actualized, and fulfilled. You’re just full of the spirit of giving, ain’t you, Juror Badge #189072433?”

Fortunately for you, I have a crackerjack method of getting out of jury duty. This is the only thing that works— believe me, I’ve tried it all:

Throwing the summons away. They’ll never take me alive! (Until I renew my DMV registration. Talk about a day-ruiner.)
Going in, but looking pissed off the entire time. (I found out this has the downside of making you look pensive and intelligent. They’ll whisk you right into that juror box. Probably make you the foreman, too.)
Announcing to the courtroom that you hate a certain race/gender/religion/accent (I’ve never actually done this. I saw some d-bag do it back in Massachusetts. A definite P.O.S. move. People wanted to spit on him and slash his tires when he was excused. You win, dirt ball. No jury duty for you. Thanks for being part of society.)
Telling them you have a sick kid at home, and no sitter. (I did this— without the required kid— in college when I was in tech week for a theater performance. I thought I was a genius. I got excused, but a friend’s lawyer-father later told me if they ever found out, I was looking at 20 days of jail. I sweated that out for two years, waiting for the bailiffs to come take me away.)
No, in the end, none of these things are foolproof or effective. So what do you do? Well, if you’re serious about snubbing your jury duty, take these steps… 

 1. First, you have to have a close family member— preferably a nuclear family member— die a violent death by someone else’s hands.

You’re still with this, right? Okay, good. You’re a rock. Let’s move on to Step 2:     

 2. It’s ideal if the person who caused the violent death— let’s call him the murderer— disappears. Vanishes. The longer the better. In my case, the murderer ran for two years without a trace. What this gives you is a wonderful appearance that you really mistrust the justice system. That’s what you want here.

 3. Show up when they summon you for jury duty. Wear a shirt and tie, or go casual. Doesn’t matter, as you’ll see.

4. Answer the lawyers’ questions honestly during the voir dire. These are smart folks, and this whole process is designed to ferret out your prejudices, biases, and opinions. You don’t have to lie or make any effort here. Just tell them what you think.

5. When the right question comes out, you pull out that Get Out of Jury Free Card. Here are a multitude of questions where you can use it:

Have you ever been in a courtroom?
Have you or anyone in your family ever been a victim of a crime?
How do you feel about the police and law enforcement in general?
Do you believe someone is innocent until proven guilty?
There’s no right or wrong here, by the way. You can answer any of the above any which way you wish. You just have to mention that murder and the powers that be will lean in towards each other, whisper amongst themselves, and emerge with:
“Thank your time today, Juror Number [Insert your badge number here]. You have been excused.”

Foolproof.

Does this all seem like too much effort? Maybe. But if you hate jury duty as much as I did, you may think it’s worth it.

If not, I’ll suggest an alternative perspective: Do the jury duty. I’ll tell you why.

What I mentioned is true. My brother Brian was murdered in Seabrook, NH, on February 26, 2001, and his murderer disappeared without a trace.

Two and a half years later, thanks to the U.S. Marshals, the America’s Most Wanted television show, a sidekick who decided to flip, and the dogged efforts of tons of other law enforcement officers, they caught him. We were all headed for a murder trial.

 I mean it when I say I hated jury duty, courtrooms, and anything that had to do with the law. All it had ever meant to me and mine was red tape, hassles, fines, motor vehicle difficulty, and the occasional drunk and disorderly. I never gave a shit about any of it. F’ the system.

 In October 2003, though, when I walked into that New Hampshire courthouse and saw that box full of jurors, I had never been more down-to-the-marrow terrified in my life. Ours was an open and shut case— Brian closed the bar with a couple of girls with whom he’d been chatting, the boyfriend/drug dealer of one of them moseyed on up, and a parking lot argument turned into a fatal stabbing. Brian’s murderer made the girls pile into his car, and they left him to bleed to death on the snowy asphalt.

Believe me when I tell you, though, all the worst-case-scenarios ran through my head. “What if the jurors don’t believe the story? What if lies are told about Brian carrying a weapon? What if they believe this was self defense? What if they slandered my brother’s name? Made him look like a drunk asking for trouble?”

Today, I’ve built a nice little mind palace of spirituality in the back corner of my brain, but in 2001? I feared and prepared for the worst. No faith whatsoever. I pondered, “What’s the next step if they find him not guilty? How much does it cost to have the Mafia kill someone?”

I wasn’t much of a praying man, but I prayed mightily in those trial weeks. I prayed that the truth would come out, I prayed that the jurors would see it, and I prayed that some snafu didn’t botch the whole trial. I’d grown up on loads of television and movies and wasn’t there always a mistrial? Wasn’t there always a hung jury, or some big, dramatic reveal?

When I first walked into that courtroom on that cold day, I studied every line, wrinkle, and twitch of each of those jurors faces. The family looked at them, they looked back. Some made eye contact, others couldn’t. I didn’t know any of their names, but fifteen years later, I bet you I could pick any one of them out in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Their faces live forever in my mind’s eye.

I hope you’re reading this and can’t imagine. May you never go through it. If you do, all of your friends and family— and God love ‘em, everyone shows up for a murder trial— sit and watch, pass you water and Kleenex, mutter frustrations under their breath.  You won’t ever be the same. They won’t ever be the same. A murder trial changes the way you think, the way you all relate to one another, and the way you think. It challenges your sense of right and wrong, the bedrock of your beliefs, and either deepens or nullifies your faith. Your very sanity relies on the fourteen people sitting in that little, wooden box. (Special shout-out to those two alternates who sit through an entire trial and don’t even deliberate)

You know that quote, “There are no atheists in foxholes”? Well, I’m here to say tell you there are no jury duty haters amongst a family waiting on a deliberation. One long, grueling day in, I turned to my then-girlfriend now-wife Deb, and under solemn breath said, “I will never blow another jury duty off for the rest of my life.”

Last Wednesday, I put on a shirt and tie, I took the bus downtown, and I pinned on my Juror Badge #163088266. We filed into a courtroom, I answered all their questions honestly, heads leaned and whispered, and I was excused. I walked out with other jury duty escapees who skipped down the steps like third graders after a snow day school cancelation. 

Me? I couldn’t help reflecting on whether I’d ever be able to sit in that wooden box, one of fourteen, and pay back the civic gift that was given me when fourteen strangers brought justice and a sense of closure to my family.