No More Slipping Out of Jury Duty

One of the things that frequently gets forgotten in the medical malpractice debate is that most egregious awards handed out to plaintiffs come from juries, not judges. Some of the more reasonable "tort reform" groups, therefore, emphasize that one way to have an impact on such awards is to actually serve on juries. It's an old American tradition, of course, to do everything possible to avoid jury duty ("Tell 'em you're prejudiced against all races and religions," is Homer Simpson's sure fire way off a jury). But a Findlaw column today discusses a new model law making the rounds in the states that would make it harder to skip jury duty. While I agree it's probably too easy to skip jury duty (I did it once by simply blackening an oval on the form), I'm not sure the act will really help. Of course, whether attorneys should be able to strike jurors from a panel at all is a topic for another day.