Jury Duty

[RootSkier]

I was scheduled for tomorrow, but it was settled. I am sort of disappointed.

I doubt I would have been seated, especially if it was a criminal trial.

[MakersTeleMark]

I was scheduled for tomorrow, but it was settled. I am sort of disappointed.

I doubt I would have been seated, especially if it was a criminal trial.

It likely wasn't criminal. You don't just all of the sudden accept the plea on the table the night before, but when you are staring at your checkbook all night, well, things have a way of moving positions the night before a trial.

Although I do amend the above due to one occurrence where I had a felony jury trial completely prepped, and the morning of, the head D.A. decides to dismiss the charge. That really sucked for me (what a ton of wasted prep-work), but my client was more than stoked.

I've had civil trials settle on the courthouse steps more times than I can count.

Finally, you folks skirting jury duty disgust me. You are despicable Americans.

[Big Snowballs]

I did it, couldn't get out of it once they picked me. The crazy woman that was suing Home Depot for 18 million probably regrets that her lawyers insisted I be on the panel. I had to be at court at 8:30 a.m. in the morning,(Malibu by the way) get out at 4 p.m., drive home, take a shower and a shit then go to work 'till midnite(I work swing shift). After six weeks of that I was so jaded with the total B.S. the plantiffs lawyers and witnesses spued at us ,I made sure I was head juror in deliberations.So in the end when I read the verdict, the bitch got nothing, not one f'ing penny. I was happy to have been part of the justice system and see justice prevail.

Karma is a bitch and you better hope some idiot like yourself isn't sitting on the jury if you find yourself in the same situation.

[G]

Finally, you folks skirting jury duty disgust me. You are despicable Americans.

I used to happily look forward to jury duty (really!). Now I will do everything I can possibly do to avoid it. This system is bullshit.

I've been summoned dozens of times, occasionally even just a couple months apart. I do not get sick pay or vacation pay, so taking the day off for jury duty takes money out of my pocket and pisses off my boss. I would be happy to accept that hardship in order to perform my civic duty. However, nearly every time I take that day off, I get informed the night before that I will not be needed and my name will be returned to the pool.

Fuck that bullshit. I went through the trouble and expense of taking the time off of work for this. Now I will not get to fulfill my duty, and they will require me to return again in the near future? Hell no. If the court does not respect the time and effort I put into making the arrangements to serve, then I refuse to respect my summons. Either put me to work, or excuse me for the rest of the year, assholes.



It saddens me that the way this system is set up, the people most likely to have the time to serve are the stupid, lazy, housebound losers who have nothing better to do with their life. Unfortunately, these are the last people I would want to trust my own fate with if I were a defendant.

[RootSkier]

It likely wasn't criminal. You don't just all of the sudden accept the plea on the table the night before

It settled before that. They only post the law and motion calendar one week in advance, and it didn't show up last week, so I never got to see the name of the case or anything.

[legallyillegal]

Interesting how people claim that you have to be a top-level dumbass to not get out of jury duty, and then in the same breath whine about how stupid juries are.

[boarddad]

I don't mind showing up for jury duty and have been on a couple of juries - no big deal. What makes me mad is the Socialist idea that we can all afford to volunteer the time. That's BS! That just tells me that the courts really don't appreciate the sacrifice. The pittance they pay you is another. Would you ever show up for work if they only pay you for your mileage (one way only) and $50/day only after you have worked a full day for free? Seriously, put that in the want ads and see if anyone calls for the job!

The best way out of JD is to postpone to a holiday week. Getting a room full of public employees to show up long enough to seat a jury is hard enough in a normal week, damn near impossible if they all get Monday or Friday off. I answer the summons and follow the rules and haven't had to do more than call the court in 5 years doing just this. Another way is to call the week before and postpone for just one week. That puts you in the back of the line, or at least it used to.

[Pegleg]

Wow, this thread really illustrates how much Americans take their rights for granted. Most of the rest of the world would LOVE to have the opportunity to participate in a system where no matter their station in society, people are entitled to have their claim or the claims against them heard by a jury of their peers (not politically motivated panels or government prosecutors). I clerked for a federal judge who did a lot of work helping to reform the Russian judicial system, and he said that they were always astounded when he told them that decisions were, in fact, really made by juries and that in 25 years of being a federal judge, no one had ever - ever- tried to bribe or intimidate him into overturning a jury verdict or anything else. The system may not be perfect, and yes - sometimes it involves having to actually sacrifice some of your precious time to keep it running. But if you're ever in a situation where you've been wrongfully accused of a crime, or you've been severely wronged by an individual, a corporation or the government and end up having to bring a claim to make it right, then you'll suddenly find yourself very concerned about whether those twelve jurors are paying attention to what is, at that moment, the most important thing in your life.

[Pegleg]

What makes me mad is the Socialist idea that we can all afford to volunteer the time. That's BS! That just tells me that the courts really don't appreciate the sacrifice. The pittance they pay you is another. Would you ever show up for work if they only pay you for your mileage (one way only) and $50/day only after you have worked a full day for free? Seriously, put that in the want ads and see if anyone calls for the job!

Let me guess - you're a republican who is mad as hell that the damn Obama administration won't reduce spending, at the same time you're advocating here that the federal judiciary (and, presumably, the state judiciaries too) ought to pay the hundreds of thousands of jurors empaneled every year more money. Can you spot the contradiction here? Where is this money supposed to come from, exactly? Courts are already cutting costs in every way possible because the government has to reduce spending - at the last trial I did, there was no court reporter because they couldn't afford one (just a digital recorder) and the judge had no clerk.

So, should we just ditch the jury system because it means you have to spend a day sitting in a courthouse (or at worst, a couple of weeks - trials longer than that happen, but they're exceedingly rare) getting paid minimum wage to help implement a system that's the envy of the entire world for protecting American citizens' rights? Yeah, probably.

[boarddad]

^ no on just about all counts. You ignored the part where I said I did sit on a couple of juries and was fine with the way it went. You also maser the part where I started finding a way out 5 years ago, before Obama was elected. It's the attitude of, everyone can give up a day because we say so. Your time is less valuable than ours - that sort of thing. If his were true, then my strategy of postponing to a (court) holiday wouldn't work, would it? If the budget really was that tight and their time really was that valuable, why do so many public court employees feel compelled to take the whole week off? Go ahead, show up for work, and call me in - I'll take the day off work and show up as I always have. The problem is, I haven't been called in since I started doing it. If the court employees aren't going to take it seriously enough to value my time why should I?

Just a side note; why does anyone need to sit in a jury selection room all day? The court has my age, address and occupation on the summons I returned. Can't they treat that like a resume and have the lawyers go through 90% of the selection process without me being there? That's what any employer would do. That way only a couple of dozen people get called in at the most and you COULD pay them.

[Danno]

I have never been on a jury, but think it would be cool.

And this country is full of hypocritical whiners.

[Hugh Conway]

So, should we just ditch the jury system because it means you have to spend a day sitting in a courthouse (or at worst, a couple of weeks - trials longer than that happen, but they're exceedingly rare) getting paid minimum wage to help implement a system that's the envy of the entire world for protecting American citizens' rights? Yeah, probably.

Minimum wage would be a step up. I don't quite see what your problem is with having the system account for the free labor of jurors as a cost to the running of it either. I'd rather do my "civic duty" digging ditches or collecting trash than sitting in a room waiting for bloviating faggot lawyers to finish their dickering.

I have never been on a jury, but think it would be cool.

And this country is full of hypocritical whiners.

You mean all the lawyers saying it isn't that bad?

[gunit130]

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[Hugh Conway]

Hugh Conway Posts: 8,158
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[SterlingSpikeDancer]

You guys are doing it wrong. I got called once, to a federal case in Denver, while I was living in Ft. Fun. I had finished undergrad and hadn't started working or grad school yet and it worked fine for my schedule. Since I lived the maximum distance from the courthouse to NOT require a hotel room, (69.4 miles as I recall), I got mileage ROUNDTRIP each day for 4 days and the $50/day. I ended up making around $650 total for my 4 days, which was better than my hourly wages at the liquor store. I also lucked out since they were seating the jury for the Timothy McVeigh trial the next day in the same court, which I don't think I would have been so happy to be a part of, with sequestration and all.

The interesting thing was that it was a thug from Aurora, and the cops had a sting set up to nab him and also had evidence from the bust there. In no way was the jury that was seated a jury of this guys' "peers", it was 9 white people, 2 latinos, and a Chinese woman. Even with this, I felt like we were fair and only judged the verdict on whether or not the prosecutor proved that he violated the law in question (as was instructed by the judge). At least we debated all evidence and I felt like we were fair with the verdict. Anyhow, it actually made me a little bit more comfortable with the chance of having the same thing occur if, god forbid, I should get put in a situation where I am on trial.

I will go and serve again if/when I get the call, but as a self employed person, no work=no pay, no sick day, no vacation, and I won't have the travel stipend to offset the expense this time. AND I really don't think the jury is always everyone who is "too stupid to get out of it".