The summons
A jury summons is a court's notice that your name has been drawn and you are to appear. The names come from a list the state keeps for the purpose, often the voter rolls, the driver's licence records, or both. The summons says where to go and when, and it carries the court's rules on answering it. Who sends it and which list it comes from are different in each state, and each chapter's summons card states them.
The questions
Being summoned is not the same as being on a jury. On the day, people from the pool are called into a courtroom and asked questions by the judge and the lawyers: about their background, about anything that connects them to the case, and about their views. The questioning is called voir dire, and its purpose is to find a jury that can decide the case on the evidence and the law.
Some people are excused on those answers. The reasons the law recognises are set out in each state's rules, and the ones that touch a person's views about the law are the ones this guide pays the closest attention to. What they are in your state is in its chapter.
The days of a trial
A person who is sworn in as a juror sits through the trial, hears the judge's instructions at its end, and goes out with the other jurors to decide. The judge's instructions govern what a juror may read, say and look up while the trial is running, and they are not the same in every courtroom. The size of the jury and the agreement it needs to return a verdict are set by the state. 51 of the 52 jurisdictions require every juror to agree in a criminal case.
Your state's summons
Every chapter in this guide opens with a card for the person holding a summons: who sent it, which list the name came from, what the court asks of them, and how many people sit on a jury there. It is drawn from the state's own text on jury service. The rest of the chapter is what follows from that card, step by step, for that state.