I get called for jury duty all the time, but I have yet to serve on a jury. Where I live, there aren't that many cases, so most of the time when I'm called, I sit around with the rest of the potential jurors for a morning, then get dismissed.
I was called for jury duty twice when I lived in NYC, and that was truly a horrible experience. They called literally hundreds of people at a time, and you had to go to the courthouse every day at 9AM and stay all day until 4 even if you weren't selected for a jury. There was limited seating in the big 'waiting room', and there wasn't much to do. And this went on for two whole weeks. Being called for a jury would have been a relief!
I was once called for a jury on an accident case, but during questioning, when they found my father had been an MD, both attorneys wanted me off. On another case, I wanted very badly to be off because it was an incredibly dull one where someone was suing the City of NY because of a fall on a sidewalk. It was the last day of my potential jury duty after two weeks of sitting around doing nothing, and I knew if I got on that jury I'd be in trouble with the judge because I tend to fall asleep when I'm sitting there idle and people speak in a droning voice (I did that all through college). You can be fined or imprisoned for contempt of court if you fall asleep on a jury! Fortunately the judge asked if I wanted to be on the case and I said "No", so he dismissed me.
My husband has been on several cases, including a motorboat accident, an assault, and a murder. He also served on a Grand Jury where one of the cases was a horrible one where a widow with two young boys remarried and the new husband was sexually abusing the kids.
I got off my last two jury summonses when I explained that I work as a consultant and therefore am not paid at all if I am not present at work. Where I live there are always more jurors than they need, so any reasonable excuse is accepted. If I still lived in NYC, though, they would have made me serve anyway.
