"Barred" and "exempt" have different connotations, but I take your point, they have a get out of (federal) jury duty card. I would suspect any local courts honor it.
The feds also excuse "persons over age 70; persons who have, within the past two years, served on a federal jury; and persons who serve as volunteer fire fighters or members of a rescue squad or ambulance crew."
sate of Washington excludes full time students, but doesn't exclude government employees.
Maine law exempts the following individuals from jury service:State of Maine Judicial Branch: Jury Information - Exemptions, Excuses, and Deferrals
- the Governor
- judges
- physicians and dentists providing active patient care
- veterinarians with or in an active veterinary medicine practice
- sheriffs
- attorneys at law
- and members of the armed forces on active duty.
Connecticut does not exempt police, but I bet they get voir dired out, pronto!
Juries need to be of “peers”, because you don’t want an all-white jury in the Old South trying a black man; or an all ghetto jury trying a white man in 2017.
The jury is there to prevent the state from forcing a wrongful conviction.
It is NOT there to “represent a cross-section of the community”.
(The community is not on trial or in danger of facing wrongful conviction.)