I was selected for jury duty 3 times, all in Nassau County, Long Island.
The first was in November, 1987 (I was 24), in Mineola, the county seat. After waiting most of the day in Central Jury (an auditorium; they had no real accommodations back then), I got called with a bunch of others to get bused to the nearby criminal court building. I was relieved because of my professional background in auto insurance which might get me kicked off a civil case if it involved an insurance company. I ended up getting on a shoplifting case. Spread out over a week, the trial lasted 2 days and we convicted the 39-year-old housewife and mother of 2 kids, hardly a typical shoplifter. The trial started at 11 AM, so it was nice sleeping in and having a short drive to the courthouse instead of a 7 AM wake-up and an annoying LIRR train and subway ride to Manhattan. I found a great place to have lunch which was a great hot turkey sandwich in a basement coffee shop of a nearby office building.
The second was in June, 1996, in Hempstead, near Mineola. At the time, they held trials there but not any more (only arraignments). I was among several potential jurors being questioned for a drunk driving case. But the next day, the defendant and DA struck a plea bargain, so I was back in Central Jury for 2 more days. The accommodations were better, as we had access to a TV, tables, and board games. I was filling in for a Monopoly player who had to use the rest room when we played a joke on her. I hid her money and flipped over all her property cards so she would think she went nearly bankrupt in the few minutes she was away. I didn't get selected for another case.
The third was in October, 2007, back in Mineola. I was among 30 potential jurors chosen for a civil case (construction accident). In civil cases, there is no judge for the jury selection, only the lawyers handle it. And they like to yak up a storm! They went through 25 of us in 6 hours, not counting me and a few others, and had their 6 jurors and an alternate. It was 4 PM and I was dismissed from further jury service. I was working part-time by then, and the day was one of my awful New Jersey trips, so I was spared the commute that day while receiving full pay, like the other 2 times.
But the most meaningful jury summons was the one I didn't have to obey. In late 1986, I received a notice from the Manhattan courts to appear for jury duty. However, I had moved out of Manhattan back in March (to Long Island), so I sent the notice back, including the envelope which showed the Post Office's forwarding label and some other proof of current residence. There was a really big case on the docket in late 1986, the 1984 Bernie Goetz subway shooting case. I wonder if I would have gotten on that case, mainly because I was out of town on vacation the 11 days after the shooting so I missed a lot of the early publicity following the shooting.
I have not been called since 2007. I just turned 60, and from my research New York no longer has an upper age limit to be called or to serve, after an overhaul of the system in the mid-1990s. Maybe I'll get called again, maybe not.
I was paid in full by my employer, but was able to keep travel expenses at the cents-per-mile rate they paid for business travel using one's own car. The drive was about 15 miles round-trip per day, so it didn't amount to much.