Jury duty

I've been a registered voter for 40 years, and have received my first summons for jury duty.

I'm not scheduled to work that day, so that's not a problem. The challenge is that I have to be scheduled for work three months ahead, and the appointments are usually booked ahead a couple of weeks.

Anyone care to share experiences or observations?

If you have extenuating circumstances, put it in a letter and send it to the court.  Results may vary...

I'm not trying to get out of it this. Once in 40 years doesn't seem excessive.

Regardless of your goal, if there are concerns, put it in a letter and send it to the court. Better they know. You'll probably be in and out in one day anyway.

I got out of the 3 of them last 30 months.

Twice I told them I don't speak English and once I told them, due to poverty I can't go. Excused me each time.   Last year, I unregistered myself from voter role (never voted in life anyways), and since then all jury summons has stopped. Maybe they thought I died or something.... 

I'm not following.  You're already not scheduled to work on the day of the summons.  Can't you just confirm with work that you are not available that day?

If you're worried about having to go for more than 1 day, the odds of that happening are about 0.5% in my experience.

I’ve been on the list a handful of times & served twice. Most of the times I’ve not even needed to report to the courthouse. The two times I served were both very interesting & educational. 

Just go.  If you got pulled over wouldn't you want you on jury and not.the people too dumb to get out of it?

You call the night before, your number may not be used and you're out.

I did a Federal JD, interesting.  Listen.  They ask questions prior to trial - would your experience with XYZ effect your decisions?

YOU FRIKKIN BET !!

Excused......

Got a pass for 3 years.

In reply to Duke :

Thanks, that's my concern. I'm okay with giving a day for this, but it's really hard to imagine a longer obligation.

been registered over 16 years, never a peep...  In the meantime, my wife - 4x. 

Tell HR/ the boss. They will either free your schedule or contact the court that losing you for any length of time would be detrimental to the company.

This is what my boss did. Of course, this was a very small company and me leaving would be 1/3 less moneys coming in.

Floating Doc said:

In reply to Duke :

Thanks, that's my concern. I'm okay with giving a day for this, but it's really hard to imagine a longer obligation.

I've been called 5 or 6 times in my lifetime.  I've gone every time and only been paneled once.  Even on that one, the defendant came into the courtroom, looked around nervously, and whispered to his attorney that he wanted to take the plea bargain after all.  I only know one person who has ever been seated on a trial that lasted more than a single day.

The odds that will go to trial are small, the odds that you would be selected for a jury are smaller still. Even then, most likely it would be a 1-2 day trial for most cases. For short trials, they are not usually very flexible about excusing people for work. They figure anyone can miss 1-2 days. For longer trials, they are much more understanding. I’ve been called numerous times, but only served for 1 small trial, one major trial, and narrowly missed another major trial. The more common short trials are often jury selection in the morning, straight into the trial, then deliberations- done, same day. For major trials, like for a murder or rape case, can take days just to select the jury. They may have a group of 200 people that they whittle down to the jurors and alternates. That part can be very interesting, you won’t believe the stories that come out of the jury pool during questioning. 

Serving was an eye opening experience for me, both on the minor and major trial. I definitely look at our criminal justice system, and people in general, differently.   Imagine going through a process that usually results in 12 strangers agreeing on a serious issue. 

The way it works here, you are sort of on call for 2 weeks.  You call in the morning, they tell you if you have to come in.  Sounds okay, unless you are self employed.  If you are, you have to pretty much close your office for two weeks, because you don't know if you will be going to work or the court house every day for that long.  They would not accept that it would be a financial hardship, so I told them I would be available for the last week of December, as that is when I take vacation.  The court is closed that week.  I have gotten a jury duty notice 4 or 5 times since 2002.

An attorney friend of mine said you could just ignore it.  It is not sent certified mail, so they can't prove you got it.  If they try to get you for contempt, they can't prove they notified you so contempt will not fly.

I think serving on a jury would be very interesting though.

I have served on a Jury several years back , and didn't get selected for one this past Monday, and even had to have a jury decide my fate due to some allegations used as a tactic to gain the upper hand in a divorce.  That last one was quite an experience, let me tell you...

On the Jury I served we were not there all day and it was VERY interesting.   We found the defendant Guilty of littering and obstruction of Justice.   Strange charges for sure, and based on her reaction likely put her in a bunch of trouble for a diversion or probation violation.   After the trial (not during) I was able to finally see the police video from the incident.   They certainly wanted to charge her with many other things (and might have) but she certainly wasn't innocent.    I can only imagine the games the defense attorney pulled to have that video excluded.   What was most interesting to me is we came to the right decision for some really sort of bogus and almost irrelevant reasons.

The last Monday I was at the courthouse all day and didn't get selected after a long process..  I didn't really want on the jury because the charges were sexual and involved a minor, but I must admit to being a little disappointed I wasn't selected, but the Jury was still out as of Wednesday afternoon...   I imagine they have a holdout or two who was not with the rest.

I get jury Duty notices at least once a year.   and usually calling in the night before results in my group not being needed.

I enjoyed the process both times and the questions and some of the responses made it far from a boring day...  

when I lived in my home town, which is in a small population county, I got called every 6 months for about 3 years. I only had to serve once, and even then, they tried to get me again within 6 months, but NJ disqualifies anybody who actually served for 2 years.

I will never do it again. It was a child molestation case that went a full week. I was sick for three times as long

Floating Doc said:

In reply to Duke :

Thanks, that's my concern. I'm okay with giving a day for this, but it's really hard to imagine a longer obligation.

If you make it to the jury selection & they anticipate a multi-day trial, one of their questions should ask whether it’s a hardship or if you’re ok with a longer trial. At least that was my experience. 

Back when I was in college if you were called for jury duty you had to serve for 2 weeks! You could end up on more than 1 trial if it was a short one. Later they changed it to one day or one trial. Now you just call the day before and enter a number and a recording will tell you you can stay home or you have to come in. The first time I was called as I mentioned I was in college but it was summer and I was only working part time so it didn't cause me any loss in income as I worked evenings mostly any way.

I just sat the first week but on Friday I was call into a court room and ended up being picked for a trial that started on Monday.

It was a murder & robbery trial.  A man & his girl friend lured a man to an area and robbed him and in the process the victim was shot. The girl took a plea and testified against her boy friend.  Four days of a trial, a half day for closings, and then an hour to find him guilty! It took longer for us jurors to decide on the foreman then it was to find him guity! BTW, they picked me, why I don't know. I guess I was the youngest one in the room?

mad_machine said:

.....I will never do it again. It was a child molestation case that went a full week. I was sick for three times as long

I was up for a molestation case that was supposed to last a few months  .... thankfully was excused.

I berkeleying LOVE jury duty.

If the defendant hasn't denied someone of their rights to life, liberty, or property, they're automatically "not-guilty" in my eyes.

Sending people to jail is like sending kids to war, IMO. There had better be a DAMNED good case to do so.

Non-violent drug offenders? DUIs? Some poor berkeleyer who's a little behind on child support? NOT GUILTY! 

Jail SUCKS. Don't send anyone there who doesn't deserve to be there (most people DON'T)

Remember that it's the State's responsibility to prove the Defendant's GUILT, not the Defendant's responsibility to prove his/her innocence.

My $.02 YMMV ETC

In reply to poopshovel again :

My 2nd time was a DUI case. The defendant literally drove his Escalade - which the prosecutor kept pronouncing as “es-ka-la-de” for some berkeleying reason - into the side of the bar. However, due to the fact the arresting officer only saw him stepping out of the car, not actually driving it, that technically was not grounds to convict him. I just hope he learned from it. I know I did. 

I got a jury summons last year and went down to the courthouse for a day.  They wanted me for a trial but I had to beg off, since I'm 50 percent of the full-time staff here at Autobooks.  They let me out of it.

So what's the problem?  It was a fascinating case full of juicy music industry fun and games.  If you're gonna get a case, this was the one.  One group of rich guys screwing another group of rich guys with no loss of life or serious physical injury involved.  Unfortunately, it would've been a hardship to the business so I needed to bow out.

I haven't been called for JD since 1990.  I'd be happy to serve and it wouldn't be a particular inconvenience (I'm a fed).

It's probably for the best though.  I have a very low tolerance for stupid lawyerese questions and would have to clamp myself down hard to not call them out when they ask brain dead things.  "Officer, how do you know the man was guilty of a DUI when you only saw him climb out of it, it's registered to him, the keys were in his hand, and his prints were on the wheel?   Did you actually SEE him drive into the bar?"

KyAllroad would be in jail for contempt and heckling at that point.

In reply to KyAllroad (Jeremy) :

Trust me, when we walked into the jury room & was the only one who(reluctantly) volunteered to be foreman, the first thing I did was a straw poll. We all agreed he was guilty - except one juror who brought up the technicality of it & eventually we all dated her way based on the role of law. 

The judge seemed quite surprised that we actually followed his instructions & thus presented a not-guilty verdict. 

Called once in Minnesota, none times in Florida. I'll go. I honestly don't like my job enough to want to be there, I enjoy watching court (seriously, I used to go to discharge tickets and just watch. The E36 M3 people will say to a judge ...) And really, on the off chance that I need the service a jury trial offers, I want to be afforded that chance, and I'm not going to screw anyone else out of theirs.