Why do you have to serve on a jury?

Answer 1

Jury duty is one of the ways that the Justice system remains fair and Unbiased.

Defendants get the chance to chose between a jury trail or Judge alone in many places.

The idea is that a group of normal people will reflect the morals and best parts of our society.

This insures that a single person, be he a Judge or Jury member can't make an error and send a guilty person to jail.

In reality it is much more complicated.

There is a old old movie available called 12 angry men that illustrates rather well both the good and bad sides of this system.

It is kind of boring by today's standards, but still illustrates the issues quite well.