Unsurprisingly, I have jury duty the same week that Tocqueville's chapter on the importance of juries is assigned reading for the class I'm TAing. Simply providential, if I do say so myself.
I can confirm that, as with nearly everything else, Tocqueville is right: juries are both incredibly inefficient (I spent all day at the courthouse but have yet to know if I've been selected for anything) and also an excellent way to remind citizens that they are connected to one another (I made friends with the guy sitting next to me, and it turns out he went to graduate school with my sister).
Tomorrow I have to spend a second day at the courthouse, to see if the powers-that-be are actually going to put me on a jury. In light of this, I've come to the conclusion that the extreme inefficiency of this process might outweigh the somewhat heartwarming face-to-face interactions I had with my fellow citizens. Sadly, I think almost everyone else in the courtroom had already reached this conclusion. Tocqueville would not be pleased. And as one of my students asked me the other day, "what's so great about liberty, anyway, if we're so willing to give it up?"
