I am not SSD but do have hearing impairment.
I served on a murder trial 18 months ago - and have to say it was one of the most rewarding experiences (outside of my family of course) I have ever completed. It was four weeks long - we were sequestered for one night. I worked with a diverse but great group of people. The trial exposed me to the underworld of drug dealers, poverty, mental illness and illiteracy. The crown (I am Canadian - so different terms) and the defence were in general very polite to each other with little disrespect shown to each other, the accused or the witnesses. The judge, an older woman, was very committed to her task - a lovely (very little) lady and ran a very respectful court room. We learned about hand guns and blood splatter patterns - something an accountant doesn't typically experience. It did take four weeks of my time - I went to work very early in the morning, showed up to court for 10am and went back to work when court was over. My employer was very good about it - all of us on the jury were paid by our employers which seems common for Canadian employers (not law just community support for the process).
While I am not SSD, I can't imagine jury duty being any more difficult than a smallish, predominantly single speaker gathering of people (church, lecture hall, booking reading etc.) I suspect you could also ask the judge to change chair position if one position (i.e. front row at one end) may be more helpful for hearing.
Jury duty is a pillar of both the Canadian and US justice systems - and it was a tremendous honour to serve. I will easily do it again ... just maybe need a few more years of a break!
One of my neighbours in Toronto was a retired Supreme Court judge and another neighbour was a crown attorney - both were ecstatic at my choice to serve. (I was the 112th person chosen to sit on our jury of 10 people - it took forever to pick people!!!!) It isn't that hard to get out of jury duty ... in our case, the accused was black, and the question was asked if the race of accused would affect your decision making. Obviously, not an issue for me.
AWESOME experience. A bit of passion - it was such an eye opening experience that has made me a more compassionate person for the circumstances of people around us.
Ann
PS - my fellow jurors high-fived themselves, out of sight of course, when I came into the court room. Just the look of me gave them hope that I would be the last chosen one - it was day 3 of jury selection and they were tired of listening to people who either didn't want to be there (and had lame excuses ... got to hear about them on our breaks), or who would be obviously excluded by either the crown or the defence because of profile.
