Reporting for Jury Duty

A primer.

Step one: Review your summons.

If you are especially busy at work, struggling with a parenting issue, or need to follow a specific exercise plan, your summons will be for two weeks, not one.

Step two: Alert your employer.

The person directly responsible for approving your paycheck will explain how she or he was able to avoid jury duty by simply repeating lines from Donald Trump’s stump speech. However, this may illegal. Do your civic duty and honor your summons.

Step three: Arrive early.

Metal detectors are tuned to pick up elevated levels of iron in your blood, so you may need extra time for pat down. Ask for a shiatsu.

Step four: Proof your questionnaire.

AP style is fine for most courts. Use active verbs. Avoid florid prose. And use proofreading marks to correct any unnecessary quotation marks or capitalization on the form itself.

Step five: Hug the judge.

Judges see the worst in humanity every day. Killers, rapists, tax dodgers, people who don’t update their operating system — they can take a toll. When the bailiff asks everyone to rise, run forward and throw your arms around his or her honor. A warm embrace puts a smile on everyone’s face.

Step six: Listen to the evidence.

Unlike what you may have seen in television programs and motion pictures, defendants in real trials are probably guilty of something. Study the lawyers’ legal pads. Are they using a fountain pen or a quill? Those are clues.

Step seven: Be impartial.

In our criminal justice system, defendants are innocent until proven guilty. During deliberations, you have an opportunity to advocate for the verdict of your choice based on your years of experience using Google, Facebook, or Compuserve.

Step eight: Write a book.

America deserves to know your story and the trauma you may have suffered incarcerating a person of color. Now is the time, and here is the place, to — with every fiber of your being — unburden your soul and share your hardships using the courthouse Wi-Fi.

Step nine: Get a blood test.

Excess iron in vital organs, even in mild cases of iron overload, increases the risk for liver disease (cirrhosis, cancer), heart attack or heart failure, diabetes mellitus, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome, hypothyroidism, hypogonadism, numerous symptoms and in some cases premature death.