Your guess is correct, it was during the jury questions before the trial began. They mostly asked us stuff like whether we had anything going on that would be p

Your guess is correct, it was during the jury questions before the trial began. They mostly asked us stuff like whether we had anything going on that would be problematic if the trial ran long. (This being the DC area, several people said yes and then, when asked about the nature of the problem, answered with a polite version of "I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you." The judge, having presumably heard this a thousand times before, took it in stride.) At one point, they asked if we would be able to consider the full range of punishment during sentencing. Naturally, we asked what that range was, and both lawyers and the judge all had to confer to decide whether or not we were allowed to know. (Apparently that question was new to them. Weird.) They finally decided we were allowed to know, and the answer was up to 20 years in prison. At that point I stated that I could not possibly consider 20 years in prison for the crime of receiving stolen property. I was subsequently cut from the jury, probably because of that, although of course they didn't say why. Incidentally, one of the guys who had important classified stuff going on at work that would pose a big problem if the trial ran long ended up serving on the jury. I hope for his sake that it didn't actually run long.