A year or so after he passed the California state bar, James Binnall received a jury summons. In a San Diego courthouse, he watched Rob Lowe explain the value of his public service on a television, and then was handed a questionnaire. “It was question number seven,” Binnall recalls. “Have you been convicted of a felony?” Just the week before, Binnall had been second chair on a death penalty trial in the same courthouse.