I have not had the experience of serving on a jury. I have not been sequestered away from my family for weeks.  I have not been involuntarily thrust into a media and information vacuum. I have not been asked to wade through and make sense of mind-numbing and often contradictory laws and testimony. I have not been faced with having to listen and make sense of heart-wrenching and often contradictory evidence from both sides of a fence. And I have not been forced by judicial mandate to work cooperatively with a set of my peers to come to a decision that must by consensus both disappoint and please. 

No, I have not been asked to endure the psychological and emotional devastation that is the unavoidable fall-out of being a juror selected for a murder trial. 

One truth I have learned is that I do not have to walk in someone else’s shoes to know I do not want to follow in their footsteps. Another truth I have learned is that I would have to walk in their shoes to know for myself what mental and emotional hell going through such an ordeal is like.