Why you should take Jury Duty seriously

Jury Service is a right not all countries have

Start Transcript:
I’m Burges McCowan, criminal defense attorney here in the Phoenix, Arizona area. I want to talk to you about jury service. Ufortunately, as a criminal defense attorney,I’ll never get to sit on a trial; I would certainly love to. What I see when I’m in trial is people doing everything they can to try and get out of it. I understand that; you all have very busy lives, but jury duty is very important. We’re one of the very few countries that actually have people from the community that sit and do juries.
It’s important to have. If everyone opts out of it for whatever excuse they can, the people that are left deciding someone’s fate are not really the people you or I would want deciding someone’s fate. It’s important that we have someone there that can make sure that the government has done what they’re supposed to do, and has proved the case beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s a concept that takes a little bit of education to understand.
Ufortunately what I see is most of the educated people feel like they’re above doing jury duty and try to get out of it. Don’t be one of those people. It’s important, and you’re one of the type of people that can actually do a good job on jury duty. It doesn’t take that much time, really. It’s once in a blue moon that you get called in. Go ahead and take it seriously and do a duty to your country, and serve on that jury.
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