At 8:45 in the morning on a hot August Thursday, I reported for jury duty in New York last summer. A week earlier Mayor Michael Bloomberg had made headlines by reporting for jury duty flanked by his aides. The mayor served two days before being sent home. I went three days before I was sent home.

Since my last service four years earlier, the large jury room at 111 Centre Street in Manhattan has changed. The city has added softer, more comfortable chairs, improved the air conditioning, and made it easier to plug in a computer. Even the orientation movie on jury service has gotten better. Narrated by the late CBS newsman Ed Bradley, the film provides a brief history of juries. It is an impossible challenge for a film that runs for less than half an hour, but by emphasizing jury duty as a way of protecting all of us from losing our rights, the film avoids feeling like it’s trying to teach a high school civics lesson.

I was not optimistic about getting on a jur...

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