Two grand jury decisions in the last two weeks, and a lot of people are angry over the outcomes. Yet most people, when called for jury duty, want to get out of it. I did it too.

But then once, in 1996, I was called and decided not to resist. I was interviewed, passed the test, and was selected. We heard the case, deliberated, argued, were hung, told to go back, more deliberating, we reached a unanimous verdict.

When we started the deliberation, we were all naive about the process and our responsibility. By the end, there was lots of respect. I was confident that we had reached the correct answer. I can't speak for anyone else, but coming out of it, I had a lot more trust in our legal system.

I wrote a piece about it, back then.

It's like they say, if you don't vote, you can't really argue with the outcome. If you avoid serving on a jury, how can you be outraged when a decision is reached that you don't agree with? It's exactly the same kind of thing.

Being a juror changes you.