My worst Nightmare -Jury duty.?

Question

I suffer from anxiety and am extremely religious. I REALLY don't like to judge people...or to be involved in punishing someone when I myself am not perfect. I was recently served with a jury summons and replied ..not wanting to shirk my legal responsibility. This is a federal summons and I'm really worried I might end up sending someone to jail for a long time. What do I do? I've done state jury duty before and it was no big deal cause they didn't place me when they heard of all the medications I was on. Now I'm just worried that the federal system won't care..or worse ...

Has anyone ever served on a federal jury and know what I should do? Mind you I don't mind showing..I just don't wanna ruin anyones life.

Answer 1

As a member of a jury you will be asked to determine on whether or not a fact is or is not true.

You will not be asked to judge a person - you will be charged with the responsibility of determining if a person did or did not perform a specific act.

In doing so you must put your personal prejudices aside and make your decision based strictly on the facts presented to you.  

In life we have both civil and spiritual duties.  These duties are separate and we must not allow one to conflict with the other.  

Answer 2

Judging a person based on limited knowledge to your own standards is not a good thing.  In everyday situations, you rarely can know enough to actually provide a "good" judgment anyway. Also, your personal standards may be different for you than for someone else and can lead to problems.

However, when charged with the civic duty of serving on a jury, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and do your duty as requested.  The government is charged with providing you the evidence relative to this person's actions such that you are judging his actions, not the person anyway.  In Romans, Paul says that he is innocent of the blood of all men, having preached the full and true Gospel to them.  In other words, he had a clear conscience based on what he actually did.  If you do your due diligence and perform the work requested of you, you can rest assured that the person received the punishment that he deserved for the actions that he committed.  The alternative is that 12 other people will be chosen that may not even be concerned about the gravity and weight of the case presented and the person may receive the same sentence or worse.  

In other words, if the evidence against the person convinces you that the person is guilty, then you would have to believe that almost any other 12 jurors would agree with that fact.  Therefore, it would not be your responsibility alone in sentencing the person anyway.  Good luck.

Answer 3

Knock off the anxiety and religious bull. That's a copout.

You just don't want to do it? Right?

  All this crying about " my rights" but when it comes to responsibilities, no one wants to be around.

You show up as requested. Or you'll have an anxiety attack like never before when a  US Marshall shows up your front door.