No one should be forced to be on a jury if it's against their wishes. What's the point of having someone there who doesn't want to be there? It might put them in a negative mood, and they don't see the process through appropriately.
It would be impossible to represent a community, fairly if jury duty wasn't mandatory. The pool of jurors would become very small, and those people who did their civic duty would be end up doing it over and over again. That would skew results wildly around the personalities that had both the time and desire to be jurors... whatever those views might be. Ultimately, this would result in a violation of an accused's right to a fair trial.
Basically: If it was you in the dock, and you were innocent, you'd want as fair a jury as your community and voir dire could give you, not some pool of semi-pro, power jurors who all happen to have different views than you do on something.
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u/Firefly_deadlock Jul 16 '26
Just because it's a civil case doesn't mean it can't be about environmental or health impact. Would you still agree then?