Federal Judge Plays Serious Hardball With Jury-Duty No-Show

[WSJ Law Blog]

In some parts of the country, it's still quite risky to miss jury duty, according to a story out Wednesday in the Houston Chronicle.

The lead paragraph in the story from Houston Chronicle reporter Mary Flood just about sums it up:

A 19-year-old college freshman missed class Tuesday when a federal judge decided to teach her a civics lesson by ordering federal marshals to haul her in chains from school to court to explain why she shirked jury duty.

According to the story, Houston federal judge David Hittner was none too pleased that the teenager, Kelsey Gloston, had hung up on jury clerks calling to get her to the courthouse.

“You in effect went right at the jury folks and said you’d have nothing to do with it,” Hittner told Gloston. “I’m going to hear exactly what your problem is with jury duty and what your problem is with how our country operates.”

The judge released Gloston, who said she’s a pre-nursing student at Lone Star College, to return with a lawyer for a hearing Thursday on whether he should find her in contempt and possibly detain her.

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Great use of court time.

Maybe a simple fine would be better.