In a Glynn County, Georgia courtroom a few years ago, two trial lawyers spent five and a half weeks on a case that would test the limits of civic duty. The case, brought under Georgia’s Drug Dealer Liability Act, involved 21 plaintiffs—mostly children of opioid addicts—suing the lawyers' client. The human toll was devastating: neglectful parents, overdose deaths, lives shattered. It was the first case of its kind in the country, and all eyes were on the jury.
After nearly two days of deliberation, twelve ordinary citizens from coastal Georgia returned a verdict: not liable on every count. The Supreme Court of Georgia later unanimously affirmed the decision. The lawyers, Randy Jordan and Chris Jordan of HunterMaclean in Savannah, are not seeking to relitigate the case. Instead, they see it as a powerful reminder of what jury service demands and what it can achieve.
“They had to sit with grief-stricken families for weeks and still follow the law,” the Jordans write. “They had to resist an emotionally overpowering narrative on one of the most charged subjects in American life and ask instead: Does the evidence actually support this claim?” The jury got it right, they argue—not their version of right, but the court’s version.
With over a hundred jury trials between them, the Jordans say they have never seen a jury that didn’t take the responsibility seriously. “Ordinary people, called away from their jobs and families, handed a case they didn’t ask for, almost always rise to it,” they note. “Juries are not perfect. But they are serious, in a way that a lot of American public life no longer is.”
That seriousness is increasingly rare. Gallup reported in 2024 that confidence in the judicial system had fallen to a record-low 35 percent, part of a broader collapse affecting Congress and the presidency. Yet many of the same Americans who distrust institutions are quick to find excuses to avoid jury service—the one institution that still belongs, in a real sense, to them. This contradiction is worth pondering as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary this summer.
Jury duty is one of the few democratic duties that puts ordinary citizens directly in charge, not elected officials or experts. The jury box is a rare space where citizens must listen to competing claims, weigh facts over slogans, deliberate with strangers, and reach judgments with life-altering consequences. It demands actual citizenship—not performance or symbolic gestures.
In most of American life, people self-sort into echo chambers, choosing their news, communities, and often their facts. Disagreement is muted or scrolled past. The jury system cuts against that. It forces citizens from different backgrounds to submit to common rules, demanding patience, attention, and humility to follow evidence where it leads, rather than where identity or bias would prefer.
Jury service is inconvenient and often financially disruptive, especially for working people. Courts should work to make it more accessible. But the burden is not an argument for skipping it—it is part of the point. The Founders gave ordinary citizens a direct role in justice because self-government is a practice, not an inheritance.
Americans are comfortable talking about rights but less so about duties. Our constitutional model depends on both. Much of public life now feels remote, curated, and performative—arguing on platforms optimized for outrage. The jury room is nothing like that. It is serious and unscripted, forcing people to stay in disagreement until they have done something honest with it. In a polarized country, that may be one of the most valuable civic experiences left. As the nation’s 250th anniversary approaches, a new poll shows that just 44% of Americans call the US a top nation, underscoring the need for authentic civic engagement.
“Anniversaries are easy, and they don’t come often. Citizenship is harder,” the Jordans write. “A republic cannot survive solely on patriotic language. It survives when everyday people accept the disciplines that liberty requires of us. Jury duty is one of them. Stop treating it as something to escape. It is the last place where democratic responsibility is still real, and where ordinary Americans are still trusted to get it right. In our experience, they usually do.”
