As mentioned earlier in this thread, I am a bit sympathetic to the demands that jury duty puts upon the private sector. And let me be clear, when I say "private sector" I am addressing the self employed and/or small business owner that is integral to running a business. The many in the private sector who can still receive pay (by law) for sitting on a jury have no legitimate excuse to try and evade this obligation. On the other hand, if you are some sort of contractor doing work with billable hours, you are screwed if you have a long trial.
My suggestion, and I believe it's a practical one, is to draw from those receiving state pension benefits and those on unemployment. The first group would not be "deadbeats" but alot of older folks with plenty of time on their hands anyway. Since the state already has to pay for these people and their golden parachute's, they should be at the top of the list for these civic duties. Secondly, the unemployed (and let's face facts), the only way many of these people are drawing unemployment is because they were at one time employed. There are plenty of out of work professionals, we aren't talking about Section-8, food stamp, chroniclly unemployed substance abusers.
I still take issue with AK47 shirking this responsibility because I don't, for a nanosecond, believe that anybody who runs a small business would be supporting of Obama's policies. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that each of these Obama-ites HAVE to run a small business and deal with the myriad of bullshit laws and regulations and THEN tell me if they still support all of this red tape.
Most of these rabid followers have the whole catered to "employee mentality" which is a sort of greed and ignorance about the actual risks that a small business owner has to take on to be a "going concern". They simply have no clue as to the costs to employ someone in this country. And then they have the audacity to bitch and moan about all of the outsourcing. Sorry, but can't have it both ways.
you go Lucrum.