I was selected for jury duty and was seated for a 6 week civil trial last year. Post-trial after talking to the defense attorneys it seems likely I would have

I was selected for jury duty and was seated for a 6 week civil trial last year. Post-trial after talking to the defense attorneys it seems likely I would have been dismissed by the plaintiff (they were dismissing 'engineer types'), but because of the rules of selection the plaintiffs were basically out of arbitrary passes (I don't know the legal terminology but at a certain point they can appeal to the judge to pass on a potential juror, but only if there is a very specific reason (like I know somebody on the case), but there's a limit on how many arbitrary passes they get ("we don't like this guy, he won't see things our way"). So I guess my point is, you may be selected even if you are not ideal for one side or the other just because of the rules of the dance of voir dire and random luck of the draw (I was the last one seated, if they had avoided on passing one less person I would have walked out on day 1). The trial ended up being about cold therapy devices and a guy who was suing a local corporation saying the device caused problems in his knee. I was initially surprised the defense (who still had passes) kept me around because in the original juror questioning I'm sure I came off as the liberal/borderline-anti-corporate-socialist lefty that I am. In any case, the defense did a really good job of rationally showing that the device didn't cause the harm and the harm was the result of medical malpractice from the actual doctor; but the plaintiffs had a way more charismatic law team and almost won the case; in the end it was a mistrial with me and a few others holding out for the defense, plaintiffs would have won with one more vote (since it was civil it wasn't required to be unanimous); 3 days of very painful deliberation, trying to calmly explain to others on the jury how badly they misinterpreted the testimony and evidence and how they were manipulated by the plaintiff's attorneys (but, you know, not saying it outright like that). The whole experience was actually pretty interesting though 6 weeks was at least 5 weeks too long. At least we had Fridays "off" (though I went to my regular job on Friday and worked a lot on the weeknights on days I was at court to keep up).