How I got cut from jury duty

I spent parts of two days in a Douglas County District Court last week, undergoing the tedious process of jury selection for a criminal trial. I'm pretty sure I know why I got cut, and I'm still a little bothered by it.

If you've never been through the jury selection process, it can be a pretty intense thing — the prosecuting and defense attorneys each have a crack at the jury pool, asking hours of questions designed to elicit your biases, and to send you home if your biases are too overt. Lots of personal information gets shared, sometimes tears are shed, and it's all a very intense way to spend time with a few dozen strangers.

It's also, less obviously, a preparation for trial and the types of arguments that both sides will make. The lawyers, in picking a jury, are walking a tricky line: They want to get rid of overtly biased jurors so that they can conform to fair trial rules — but they also want to pick jurors who might be amenable to the arguments. So, not too biased but biased enough.

Which, I guess, is where I come in.