Typically, you'll end up sitting around for hours with a bunch of senior citizens in sweat pants, watching daytime TV or reading out-of-date magazines. And I don't mean "Scientific American."

Occasionally, they actually go so far as to march a couple dozen of you into an otherwise empty courtroom, where a judge and a couple of attorneys question the gang, first as a group and then individually, to find out if you're familiar with any of the principals in the case, or have been prejudiced by watching TV news accounts of the crime, whatever.

At some point, if you make it into the "first 15" in the box (three will be alternates), the judge will ask if you think you can render an objective verdict based on the evidence. If they stopped there, I'd have no big problem. But most will go beyond that, asking whether you will swear to "take the law as I give it to you."