I found the below in the draft folder of my email, from 2006. Interesting memory...
I am back to New York, just finished up my jury duty. It lasted exactly two days. Extremely interesting in a slowed-down sort of way--I would have enjoyed a full week I think.
I sat for a long time during the voir dire (jury selection) of a case involving 4 defendants (some sort of unsavory , vaguely Jewish vaguely East-European group) and 3 corporations of which the best-dressed sleazeball was the president and CEO of all 3. An internet provider, an escort service, and some other corporation. And the charges were promoting prostitution and money-laundering. So anyone with any kind of financial background was immediately excused by the judge, because we've all had anti-money laundering training. But it took them a long time to exclude all of us, because they were going 1 by one.
The judge was this dyspeptic old guy from Ohio , you could tell he was going to great efforts to be civil to the jurors (and didn't always succeed). But he had absolute respect for all the court officers who were allowed to yawn and sleep in the court. The bailiff was a 21-year-old Puerto-Rican girl who kept a liter bottle of diet pepsi out on her desk. One of the court officers said something about Cicero after the judge made a long speach to the jury, and the judge actually laughed.
The judge loved to hear himself talk, he didn't like to hear anyone else talk, and his main concern was to move things along. He said he tried to go quickly for our sake, even though his term went until 2012 and he was in no hurry.
An older woman said that she wasn't sure she could be fair and impartial, because after a few days she would just be so worried about her decorating business that she wouldn't be able to concentrate properly on the trial. This really pissed the judge off. First he tried to make her feel as guilty as possible, talked about the disapproval of men lying dead in military cemeteries. Then he interrogated her and found out that her husband was an ERISA attorney with a well-established practice. "With his salary he can support you for a couple of months, I guess" concluded the judge. They ended up excusing her behind closed doors anyway. But everyone was kind of afraid of the judge after that.
One younger guy said, "I don't know if I can be impartial about this because I have some pre-conceived notions about escort services. Some of my friends have used those things, I know it's not just milk and cookies." The judge excused him right away. Then he asked the prosecution if he was on their witness list.
Everyone had to answer a bunch of questions, so you found out some interesting information. One woman said she had been raped. A guy said his mother had been raped. One guy said his brother had been in a recent high-profile trial involving an escort service, got excused without having to give any details. There was a judge's daughter, and the daughter of two parole officers, and a guy who said he was good friends with about 10 cops. The first person to get excused was a guy who raised his hand when the judge asked if anyone had a personal relationship with Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. The judge said that he had asked this in many trials, and this was the first time that anybody had said they "hung with Robert, or chilled with Bob."
One guy said that he was very heavily involved in the "anti-human trafficking movement". And he told the judge that he had been arrested. "Civil disobedience" asked the judge. The guy nodded. The judge said he had to excuse him.
When they called me up I was like the 4th person in a row who had been summarily excused from the same seat. I told him that I worked in a bank and had money laundering training. There was silence. I asked him if I should continue he said "no" and just waved his hand.
They called 100 jurors to fill 14 seats. I thought it was excessive, but in the end they went through just about every candidate before they filled all 14. At the end of the day, everyone who had been rejected (or not voir-dired) got to go home.
