I have a dream, a dream that may never come true as long as I hold this job.

I want to sit on a jury. Really and truly.

This dream first came to me when I covered the courts for a living. When I covered a trial, I watched the jurors’ faces as they heard testimony or closing arguments.

When my wife, who is a lawyer, is in trial, I eye the jurors. Which ones are paying attention to her? Which seem more interested in the other side? What happens during deliberations? Is that one really sleeping?

My big chance came last month. I was called to the Historic Courthouse in Napa. I went to the nicely-appointed Jury Assembly room. I ate a court-approved Butter Cream cookie. I filled out forms and listened as courteous staff and the presiding judge himself, the Honorable Raymond Guadagni, emphasized that we potential jurors are the last bastions against the tyranny of the likes of King George III.

My jury dream was not to be. Something about being editor of the local newspaper — who edits court stories and whose wife is a litigator in the relatively small local legal community — worked against me.

I made it into the jury box during voir dire, when dozens of prospective jurors are queried — name, occupation, spouse’s name and occupation, children — to see who will make the cut. The panelists whose answers are out of the ordinary — the ones who are married to cops or who have been arrested for the same crime as the defendant or who proclaim that they think the Penal Code is merely advisory— receive follow-up questions.

This was the beginning of the end for me.

The prosecutor asked if my wife is a former prosecutor. Yup. She asked if I cover crime for the newspaper. Yup, sometimes.

In my mind’s eye, I saw one of those electronic boards that display the odds at casino sports books. The numbers were spinning, the odds against me growing longer and longer.

The criminal defense lawyer asked again if I was married to my wife, apparently incredulous that someone like me could be married to someone like her. Then he asked if I recognized him.

This is not generally a question asked of someone expected to be fair and impartial. The odds grew longer.

No, I didn’t recognize him. The next question was whether I used to play basketball.

In the casinos, they took me off the board. I was no longer a reasonable wager.

Yes. A basketball game, involving mostly lawyer types, takes place at lunch in this town. I played for awhile, until I recognized the futility of arguing foul calls with people who argue for a living.

I was “thanked and excused,” i.e., tossed into the great heap of jurors who just couldn’t be trusted to cut the fair and impartial mustard.

Thanked and excused, never to sit with my peers and keep potential King George III’s at bay.