I became a US citizen in the mid 2000s (I have forgotten the exact year) and recently got called for the first time for jury duty. I am very excited about this as it is both a central part of the functioning of the judicial system (and hence civil society overall), as well as a great personal and family learning opportunity. I am writing this blog post in the waiting room seeing if I will be called for a jury selection.

Germany, where I grew up, doesn’t have a jury system. Instead, judges not only run the proceedings in the court room but also decide the verdict and pick the sentence. This might seem to make the judge way more powerful than in the US but this power is heavily circumscribed by more detailed laws and guidelines. Judges in Germany are civil servants employed by the states (there are also some federal judges). In criminal cases in Germany the government is represented by a so-called “Staatsanwalt” (literally “states attorney”), who has to have the same qualifications as a judge. The system is also less “adversarial” in that these prosecutors tend to be much more limited by the law than in the US.

Given this background, I have always been intrigued by the US jury system. It seems to me that it can work only if citizens really take this duty seriously (much like voting in elections). So while I postponed my jury summons once, I am now excited to be here. I will provide an update on what happened next week (obviously without anything that I cannot legally write about).