Juror stress: symptoms, syndromes, and solutions

As civic duties go, jury service can be among the most stressful experiences that a citizen can undergo. This article describes the common sources of juror stress, including jury summons, jury selection, understanding and coping with complex or disturbing evidence and testimony, jury deliberation, and the pressure to arrive at a just verdict. The article then goes on to delineate a number of intervention models for helping jurors manage stress reactions and prevent the development of more serious traumatic stress syndromes. Finally, some recommendations are offered for professionalizing jury service that would act in the interests of civil and criminal justice.