Asklemmy

I know a lot of people will tell you to expect boredom, but the last time I was called for jury duty it was actually a great time.

Once I got inside the building and signed in the jury room was pretty nice. It was set up with a bunch of large armchairs with a side table next to it with a charging station all facing toward a projection screen. In the morning they would show a concert and a movie in the afternoon. You could listen to or you could sit there with your laptop in your chair. They had coffee and snacks for free and a side room which was dark and quiet if you wanted to sleep. They encouraged people to bring in food or entertainment too. In the afternoon they had a field trip where we were given tours of the state buildings or meetings with the judges. We had to be available for 2 weeks unless we got empaneled which only happened once but the case was settled before any arguments. If anyone's work complained that they were out or asked them to do work during the day the court would physically send one of the jury officers to go yell at your boss and he would come back and tell us about it.

By the end of the week we were all on a first name basis and people were bringing in legitimately good food. One guy played us some music and another guy was a radio host and offered to announce an Uno tournament like it was a professional sporting match. One guy needed help with filling out a bunch of paperwork for an issue he was having and we all pitched in to help him figure it out and it was done in a morning.

I still talk to some of those people and it was 5+ years ago. Hopefully you have a good time too.

Expect a lot of boredom.
While my experience is from different states, I'm pretty sure that part is universal. Bring a book. Listen to instructions and just go with the flow. But mostly, expect to be bored.

Remember that jury nullification exists. If you're being asked to convict on something that's bullshit, you can just say not guilty and the court can't tell you that you gave the wrong answer.

This is a double edged property. It can be used as easily to shield some guy smoking pot from jail as a hate crime.

Just don't tell them you're nullifying because they'll remove you.

If selected, you will likely need to debate with utter morons during deliberation. It’s extremely annoying. I was curious about the experience until then and will absolutely do everything possible to avoid landing on another one.

I don't know about Florida specifically, but in my experience...

Show up at the courthouse or wherever your reporting location is. You will have to go through metal detectors/security similar to an airport. Bring a book or something to entertain yourself, there will be a lot of waiting around.

Everyone reporting for jury duty will get signed in and sit in a big boring room. You may be in this room for hours. Court officials will call a group of 20-40 people by name or juror number and lead you into a courtroom. A judge will give you basic details of the court case and ask if anyone has any disqualifying circumstances (you're the sole income provider for your family, you're a student and it's finals week, the case involves a profession or industry that you're part of, you personally know one of the people involved, etc...). Both lawyers will ask your group questions to determine if they want you on the jury or not. This isn't a one-on-one interview, it's more "Raise your hand if you think insurance companies are the bad guys," or "does anyone here have really strong opinions about sexual abuse?"

If you get selected to participate on that jury, you'll stay behind and get further instructions from the judge about the trial and when you're to report back next. They should give you a general idea of how long they expect the trial to last. If you're not selected, you may be released immediately or you may get led back to the holding area until you're called for selection on a different trial. This process could repeat several times. It all depends on what the case load for the courthouse is that week. You may get lucky and get released as soon as you check in if they've filled all their juries for the week already (I had this happen once), but since you're showing up on a Monday I wouldn't bank on it.

Before you're released, you should get a piece of paper that acknowledges you've fulfilled your jury duty and something to show your employer to prove you weren't just playing hooky from work.

Bring a book. Be patient. Expect it to take most of the day.

I've been through jury selection once, didn't get picked. Honestly, it was as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Can be a bit boring at times so bring a book. And water. Definitely bring a water bottle. Really depends how quick they select people. They might have the whole jury picked before they even call you up. If you do get called up, you'll be asked some basic questions like who you are and some questions about your opinions. Be honest, I didn't feel like I was being pressured or anything. I was actually pretty surprised at how casual everyone was. The judge was friendly, took his time to listen to everyone's answers. Bailiff seemed like a pretty chill guy. I was definitely expecting everything to be way more formal.

If you're lucky they'll turn you away at sign-in saying, "the courtroom is full, take your money and go".

Dress decently and bring a book or some other way to entertain yourself, you should mostly expect being bored. Most cases plea out so they wind up not needing most people they call in, so you might not even make it to the selection process.

I would love to hear how you handled it. I just have a note I reuse, an email my therapist gave me for anxiety so I could get out of it. I just change the date each time. Worked three times in a decade.

In my state going into the courthouse is a bit like getting on a plane. after that its just boring so have a book, tablet, laptop, game system. When you are in the court though for selection you are not allowed to use any of it and have to hurry up and wait while they call folks up and interogate them. In the general pool room though its basically like a high school study hall.

It likely depends on the courthouse, but generally speaking you'll show up, sign in, someone will give a little talk about how things work, and then you'll wait in a waiting room for a few hours while various names are called. Then you'll go into the court room and the actual jurors will get selected from the pool. They'll ask some questions and depending on the answer some people will get removed (having a family member who's a police officer is pretty common).

If you're not selected, you'll probably go back to the waiting room to see if you get pulled for another case. If you are, you'll sit and listen to the details of the case and eventually make a determination. Depending on the case/jurisdiction, you might also be a "backup juror" where you'll sit through the entirety of the case, but won't actually be part of the deliberation at the end unless another juror had to drop out for some reason.

I ended up getting a murder trial, which was pretty interesting. Overall wasn't a horrible experience, but definitely glad I brought a Steam Deck while I was waiting.

A lot of sitting around. No phones allowed. If you are lucky and can work remote they may let you use a laptop so you don't have to burn PTO. I had to be available the entire week and at the end of it all I wasn't selected.

It was a pleasant experience for me here in NJ. The building had WiFi and a quiet area with desks for anyone who wanted or needed to get some work done. The staff ran a tight ship, but they were friendly about it. It was very easy to get dismissed for various reasons, which is what happened to me. I'm glad I wasn't because it was a murder trial with a young defendant, which would have been a bummer.