《365个英语小故事》:实用简洁的小故事,都是日常生活小故事,在学习英语的同时了解美国文化,循序渐进,轻松掌握。 The mailman delivers good news and bad news. Topping the bad news list for many people who live in Los Angeles is a jury summons. This document tells you that you must respond by mail or phone for possible service on a jury. Many people feel that jury duty is a boring chore and would prefer not doing it. In fact, court clerks say that the most common question they hear is: Why do I have to serve? The official response is: Jury duty is a responsibility that all qualified citizens must share. If you are a citizen, if you can read and understand English, if youre over 18 years old, and if youre not a felon, you are eligible for jury duty. If you ignore the summons, you might be fined up to $1,500. A jury trial might last one day or one month. If you work for the government, this is no problem, because the government will pay you your regular salary while you are on jury duty. However, if you are self-employed, you lose your regular income for that time period. Instead of your regular income, you get $15 a DAY for sitting on a jury. This is another reason people try to avoid jury duty. Jack got the bad news yesterday. Even though he was retired and sat around all day watching reruns of old movies, he told his wife Polly he wasnt going to be a juror. He hated jury duty and he was not going to let the courts interfere with his retirement. |