Dear PoP – Jury duty for 18 months!?!?!

Photo by PoPville flickr user Rukasu1

“Dear PoP,

I’ve been summoned for grand jury duty to the US District Court for the District of Columbia (not to be confused with regular DC court jury duty). The summons specifically says that full time employment is not a hardship excuse. It just seems crazy to me that anyone would be expected to take this much time out of their life – I have really demanding full time job working on policy, and during this 18 months there will be at least one major piece of legislation that I need to be available to work on. There’s no way that I can competently do my job, which will involve 60-hour + work weeks when I’m working on this bill, 3 days a week. My employer will continue to pay me for full time work, which I am really grateful for, but I’m still really worried about the long term impact this is going to have on my career (and my sanity). I’m all for doing my civic duty, but this is nuts!”

Holy cow! I’ve never heard of 18 month jury duty before. I bet it is an interesting case… Apparently the duty is for ‘only‘ two days per week. Do you think the two days a week are rotating? Anyone else ever hear of something like this before? What would you do if you got summoned for 18 month jury duty?