A colleague of this reviewer once received the jury summons on the same afternoon as a wedding invitation, and reported the two envelopes, side by side on the counter, were nearly indistinguishable in weight and civic seriousness, both demanding a date be held, both requiring a card mailed back. Only one threatens a fine for nonresponse. The summons arrives on the pale government blue-gray reserved for documents nobody requested, in a typeface unchanged since the county last balanced its budget, generally on a Tuesday, for a Monday eight weeks hence, as though the courts have learned that dread improves with time to ferment.
The form asks a citizen to affirm, under penalty of perjury, that he is a citizen, a small bureaucratic loop that has never once been remarked upon by anyone required to sign it. Excusal categories are listed with the flat generosity of a document expecting to be argued with: caregiving, hardship, medical, and, in one county's version, memorably, 'other.' Response rates hover, by informal account, south of enthusiastic. The summons does not care. It will be reissued.