Here’s yet another reason jury duty has such a bad rep in the U. S. One judge jailed a stay-at-home mom for striving her best to do her duty, even when her two young children were at risk of having no daycare. Essentially, as I understand it, the judge ordered a parent to abandon and neglect her children in order to serve on the jury—which, of course, is a very serious crime: http://detroit.momslikeme.com/members/JournalActions.aspx?g=190183&m=10591415&si=Comments&pi=6#10598150 

For more on this bizarre judicial behavior, please refer to this copyrighted article in The Oakland Press.

Here’s an interesting account of jury duty in England. Apparently there juries are called for a fixed number of days and may end up serving on more than one trial. It also appears that voir dire there doesn’t weed out the bad pennies: http://notoverthehill.com/user/blogs/view/name_Mondayb/id_10065/title_jury-service/