I agree that there probably wouldn’t be enough people who would want to do it to get a fair sampling of the population.
Yes, it is mandatory, but I got a bit of a surprise the other day. My mom is now in a nursing home and I still live in her home from when I was her caretaker, so I bring in the mail and everything. I opened what I thought was the summons for me, but turned out to be a summons for her.
The next Monday I called the juror’s office to find out what we need to do. My mom is 84, so she would be exempt, but she can no longer sign paperwork. Even if she was physically able, she would not be mentally fit to serve on a jury. Like so many other issues that our family is dealing with right now, I expected us to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get this taken care of. I was pleasantly surprised when I spoke to someone on the phone on Monday, explained the situation, and have them tell me that they would remove her from the list so that she wouldn’t ever get another summons again. I really thought we were going to have to provide some sort of proof.