UGGGGH Jury Duty

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
StephenM

StephenM

Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2011
Messages
535
Location
Webster Groves, MO
Got called for Jury Duty and cleared my schedule for the week. I figured that I'd tell them I'm self employed and if I don't work, I don't make any money.

I was sure that would get me out and with my schedule cleared, I could do a couple of things around the house to make my wife happy and spend a good few days turning pens and pencils.

Didn't matter. Fairly high profile case and we had a pool of 48 to get 12 jurors and 2 alternates. Guess who was picked? They're thinking the case will go to Thursday, Friday at the latest. My wife already took off Friday because it will be our 16 year anniversary...

I know it's part of service to the country and our duty but still, I hate Mondays.
 
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Know how you feel about the duty...I've been called up for Jury several times, but was fortunate to get released most of the time... last time I was called was for a Murder trial... that was not fun... very stressful and wound up sequestered for 3 days...
 
Rob73 said:
Never been called for Jury duty since I've never registered to vote, and never will.
Click to expand...

Don't thing registering to vote matters. I'm not a citizen and I got a summons to report for jury duty. Sent back the response form and received a reply that they didn't need me but they still sent me the summons.
 
Guess I am one of the odd ones. I think it is a privilege to be called and do your civic duty. That is part of what makes this country great. It takes everyone to make the system work. Just imagine if you were on the other side of the table. Wouldn't you want someone there that felt it was the right thing to do or someone looking at their watch wanting to get out as quick as possible and they vote for their convenience and not for the truth because it is more difficult to stay and make their stand for truth and justice? I'm just saying.
 
This is kind of funny as I received a blue letter for qualification for jury duty on Friday myself. Unfortunately I have an easy out as I cannot sit for more than 15 minutes without getting up and walking, my back and the plate in my neck make it hard to hold my head up straight for very long, so I am like a hyper kid and always moving around. Yours is bad timing though.
 
First time I got a 'Jury Summons' was just after I started my current job. I had only worked for a few weeks. It was my first summons and I got selected the first go-a-round for the first trial.......it lasted 3 months!!!

About having to register to vote to get summons for jury duty......if I'm not mistaken, they use DMV records also.


Barney
 
Last edited:
Displaced Canadian said:
Rob73 said:
Never been called for Jury duty since I've never registered to vote, and never will.
Click to expand...

Don't thing registering to vote matters. I'm not a citizen and I got a summons to report for jury duty. Sent back the response form and received a reply that they didn't need me but they still sent me the summons.
Click to expand...

Same here. I had to bring by immigration documents to the courthouse to be removed from the list.

Rounder said:
Guess I am one of the odd ones. I think it is a privilege to be called and do your civic duty. That is part of what makes this country great. It takes everyone to make the system work. Just imagine if you were on the other side of the table. Wouldn't you want someone there that felt it was the right thing to do or someone looking at their watch wanting to get out as quick as possible and they vote for their convenience and not for the truth because it is more difficult to stay and make their stand for truth and justice? I'm just saying.
Click to expand...

My boys are learning about citizenship in cub scouts, and I agree, I do think it is a privilege.
 
Last edited:
There are both pros and cons to this issue but I am now in favor of a "professional" jury system. In our county they use both voter registration and DMV registration so I get called every 2-3 years. What I usually experience is a room full of people who have no interest being there. More than once while sitting in a jury room the prime interest of the jurors is expediency so everyone can go home as quickly as possible. I don't believe this thinking cultivates an effective judicial ststem. as I said....just my humble opinion.
 
We had friends that would not register to vote because they did not want to have to do jury duty. We always told them "Remember, if you don't vote, you can't complain"
 
Originally, I was of the same mind, I don't want to do this, I'd rather be doing something else,etc. It brought to mind the old joke - do you really want to go to trial and put your fate in the hands of 12 people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty?

I was only called once before and that was for the Federal courts. It was someone suing an insurance company and I told them that I probably couldn't be fair and impartial because after my mother-in-law was killed, the insurance company did everything the could to avoid paying or pay as little as possible which left a bitter taste in my mouth about insurance companies.

Now the more I think about it, (or perhaps the older I'm getting) the more I know it's the right thing to do. I told them I'm self employed but I also told them I cleared my schedule so I could serve. I didn't really want to do it but I wasn't going to put up much of a fight. The amazing thing (at least to me) was that there were at least 3 small business owners, the CFO for the Special School District and a few other "higher ups" who didn't mention what they did in court - it just came out during the recesses while we were all talking.

Hopefully it doesn't go beyond Thursday but if it does, the better years of someone's life are more important than our 16th anniversary.
 
Last edited:
I'm a trial lawyer.
I recently had a friend ask me how he could get out of jury duty. Quite frankly, I told him he would not be much of a friend if he tried to get out of the task
Every party deserves to have the most complete mix of experience made available to resolve the dispute. About 5% of the criminals did not commit any crime. (Project Innocence has gotten the release of over 250 people wrongly convicted of murder.) 50% of the civil suits have one party that is wrong but won't admit it.
My friend, a self-employed businessman, having now gone thru the process, has had an awakening about how important our jury system really is.
Jury duty is not a burden, not a drudge. Jury duty is a privilege that defines our country.
I am saddened that so many on this list, most members who honor our military, would seek to shirk this honor.

Lee
 
When I lived in DC proper, I was called up for Grand Jury Duty shortly after changing jobs. Now, I was hired and started and after 2 weeks left for 2 weeks to get married (they knew when they hired me), then less than a month later I get summoned for a month's worth of Jury Duty. I was the Accounting Manager of the place and the only accountant, so they pulled some strings to get me out since it provided a hardship to their business. I served about a week and a half and considered it an honor.

I'm one of those that think Jury Duty isn't a privilege, or a right, Its a responsibility. Being a citizen has its price and I'll gladly pay it anytime they ask.
 
I have been called for jury duty about a week AFTER each time i moved from the county. SO have not served on a state jury. I got called for Federal Grand Jury but the court is about a 5 hour drive. They decided that my serving would be too costly.
 
Rounder said:
Guess I am one of the odd ones. I think it is a privilege to be called and do your civic duty. That is part of what makes this country great. It takes everyone to make the system work. Just imagine if you were on the other side of the table. Wouldn't you want someone there that felt it was the right thing to do or someone looking at their watch wanting to get out as quick as possible and they vote for their convenience and not for the truth because it is more difficult to stay and make their stand for truth and justice? I'm just saying.
Click to expand...

+1
.
 
I like being an American citizen despite all the do-nothings that are among us. If it requires me to do something I wouldn't normally get involved with, so be it. If I didn't like being an American citizen, I would move to another country!
 
Jury duty may not be fun but it is one of those things we need to do. I was lucky I worked for a company that continued to pay us if we were called, although we did have to turn over the pittance jury duty paid to the company. I've been called 3 times but never selected. My boss got called a few years ago for a murder trial that lasted over a month. Working somewhere else that would have been a real hardship. Glad he was called though the guy was found guilty and got 25 years without parole. He had killed a friend of mine at the shooting range I used to belong to in order to join a gang in Toronto. With him being called after it was over I got to find out a little more than I would have otherwise. I likely would have been disqualified for that one.
 
I have been called 5 times now for jury duty. My name must be stuck in some sort of "cycle". For me it is a total waste, I have been in Law Enforcement forever...they don't even want me for Civil Suits. All I ever do is sit there and then get rejected after 3 or 4 hours....what a waste.
 
I've been registered to vote since 1964 and have never been called. LOML has been called several times. I'd have no problem serving, especially now that I've retired.
 
There are some pretty interesting perspectives when poeple talk about jury duty. I've been called up for jury duty 3 times. 2 of them were very minor civil suits that were finished in a few hours. The third trial was a very high profile case here locally that lasted 4 1/2 weeks. I feel like it's my duty as a citizen to show up for jury duty when i'm called.
 
Opposite

EarlD said:
I've been registered to vote since 1964 and have never been called. LOML has been called several times. I'd have no problem serving, especially now that I've retired.
Click to expand...
While living in Tioga County NY I got called 3 times and my wife never got called. It wasn't bad though...the first time I got called, I was "on call" for a month but there were no trials....the second time I was picked to sit on the jury but after we were seated the accused entered a plea bargain so the trial was canceled and the third time there was one trial scheduled and I got dismissed...it was a sexual abuse trial involving an older man and a teenage woman and I had 4 teenage daughters, in addition one of the assistant D.A.s was my lawyer.
 
I agree with ROUNDER--it's basically a privilege to contribute to the fair hearing of opposing points of view---we can't just "skate by" in this society, we need to hitch up on pants and contribute--
 
Probably one of the most gut wrenching days of my life yesterday. The guy (26 at the time) was accused of Statutory Sodomy (with a 4 year old - the son of his girlfriend). Everything was botched - the police didn't bother to record the "confession" (which may have been coerced), family members contradicting each other, and the mother had died from cancer in December 2010.

In the end, we put together a timeline of how everything went down, what was written, the fact that he was Mirandized and never asked for a lawyer, the patterns of the boy in his recorded session with the CAC (Children's Advocacy Center), and a few other pieces of evidence. The hardest part was winnowing the facts from the suppositions, preconceived ideas, etc.

We ended up finding him guilty and had a few doubts but didn't think that they hit the threshold for reasonable doubt.

Never really want to go through something like that again.
 
Never figured that out.....

StephenM said:
Probably one of the most gut wrenching days of my life yesterday. The guy (26 at the time) was accused of Statutory Sodomy (with a 4 year old - the son of his girlfriend). Everything was botched - the police didn't bother to record the "confession" (which may have been coerced), family members contradicting each other, and the mother had died from cancer in December 2010.

In the end, we put together a timeline of how everything went down, what was written, the fact that he was Mirandized and never asked for a lawyer, the patterns of the boy in his recorded session with the CAC (Children's Advocacy Center), and a few other pieces of evidence. The hardest part was winnowing the facts from the suppositions, preconceived ideas, etc.

We ended up finding him guilty and had a few doubts but didn't think that they hit the threshold for reasonable doubt.

Never really want to go through something like that again.
Click to expand...

I've personally never really figued out how to determine that doubt is either reasonable or not reasonable. So I hope I'm never in a position where that's important to someone's life.

I've seen and heard a number of different explainations but have never been able to reconcile in my mind how I might react.

I have watched a number of trial programs over the years where based on the evidence shown I would have had doubts but the jury found the accused guilty and I've seen some where I would have had no doubt at all where the jury found the accused not guilty.

One thing I have noticed over my lifetime is how much more attention the lawyers pay to jury selection today than they did years ago. "jury of peers" seems to mean something completely different now than when I was a young man. The last questionaire I filled out wanted to know if I knew the prosecuting attorney, the defense attorney, any of the assistant DA's (even those not involved in the trial), the accused, relatives of the accused, the victim, and relatives of the victim. As well, they asked if I had read about the case in the newspaper, heard anything about it on TV, ever talked to anyone about it and on and on...I ended up thinking that they couldn't find 12 people in Tioga County who could have answered "no" to all the questions unless they had lived in the county for less than 2 months before being called to serve.
 
They are not looking for someone who says "no" to all the questions.

In fact, being "informed" is part of their ideal jury member's profile.

If you say "yes" to the questions, (here, at least) they will ask you if you believe it will influence your ability to judge innocence or guilt in the matter before this court.

At this point, you can counter with questions, if you wish. "Is there an insurance company involved?" "I'm inclined to believe they fight every claim, reasonable or not, so I would be prejudiced against them"---will keep you from being selected.

My answer was, "I don't think it will influence my ability to judge the facts"--I was accepted.

(sat through the trial for 3 days, then they needed only 12, we had 13 in case someone got sick---so they pulled a random member to leave---That's me!!)
 
Last edited:
A little different

ed4copies said:
They are not looking for someone who says "no" to all the questions.

In fact, being "informed" is part of their ideal jury member's profile.

If you say "yes" to the questions, (here, at least) they will ask you if you believe it will influence your ability to judge innocence or guilt in the matter before this court.

At this point, you can counter with questions, if you wish. "Is there an insurance company involved?" "I'm inclined to believe they fight every claim, reasonable or not, so I would be prejudiced against them"---will keep you from being selected.

My answer was, "I don't think it will influence my ability to judge the facts"--I was accepted.

(sat through the trial for 3 days, then they needed only 12, we had 13 in case someone got sick---so they pulled a random member to leave---That's me!!)
Click to expand...

NYS the alternates are just that - they sit through the trial but when it's over they are dismissed. They would become a jury member in case of sickness, death or sometimes another cause. They get moved to the jury in the order Alternate #1 and alternate #2 (there are usually 2)
 
I have served 3 times. One of those times was for the grand jury, meeting every quarter for the whole year. I had previously asked to be dismissed as I was self-employed and argued that the Summer months were critical to my business. I got excused for that one but when called again decided not to fight it. Every time I served it was an interesting experience! It's very enlightening!
 
I was in court one day for a trial and they stopped mid-testimony. A lady came in with a lawyer. She had been picked for a special grand jury regarding an investigation into a court officer who had really f*****d up. (Literally, with some of the younger female interns and staff.) This lady had lied about why she was not able to serve on the SGJ. I've known this judge since we were in law school together. I know his temper.
When he was done with her the paint was peeling from the walls.
There was a case in Atlanta a few years ago that made national and international news about a guy, Brian Nichols, who escaped from the court, shot a judge, a court reporter, a cop and a federal agent. This was the judge who tried that case.

Lee
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom