Jury Duty

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Originally Posted by californiagrown

My wife clerked for a few years. She has some pretty gnarly stories from cases her judge heard during her time there as he randomly was assigned a number of high profile violent crime cases.

Her advice for getting out of jury duty is to show up, but anytime you are instructed to not do something or it would disqualify you... immediately do it. Usually its them not wanting you to share personal details or something along those lines (job, age, first name, etc). And they will NEVER actually charge you with contempt, etc as thats just more paperwork the overworked staff has to do.

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Before the lawyers questioned us, I (and the rest of the jury pool) had to stand up and answer a long list of specific questions on a screen - Full name, age, kids, occupation, occupations of your spouse + occupations of any kids outside the house, education, previous jury duty and a few more that I can't recall right now. Not sure if that's typical these days (didn't have to do that in a different county 12 years ago), but it seemed to speed up the filtering process.

Friend in South Lake Tahoe has gone through the jury interview process several times, and he was always bummed to hear so many others use the “I am a racists” approach to get out of duty.

My wife went through interviews when she was 4 months pregnant. Judge gave her the excuse not to serve because they could not guarantee that she’d be able to make her prenatal visits. But the judge was certain that it’d be a 3 month-long or shorter trial. Trial was a hate-crime murder of a trans gender 17 yo girl (those in the Bay Area may remember when that went down). The trial ended with a hung jury. My kid was ~6 months old by the , about 8 months longer than the judge planned.

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Originally Posted by ::: :::

I haven’t seen a letter in about 2yrs…hmm

Much like a few others here, I’m kind of intrigued by the process & enjoyed my one jury service…tho I am very happy it was just a day & done

mrs ::: ::: only got called once ever…by NY…AFTER we had moved to OR

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im more intrigued by the process of selecting jury duty members at this point. I assume it varies between courts (might be wrong) but it seems wacky and not conducive to good justice that some people only get called after decades or never at all, while others get called regularly.

^^^Both Ms TBS and I got jury pool summonses about 2 months after we moved to Deschutes County. IIRC the summons for the trial I noted upthread came about a year after we moved into PDX from Clackamas county.

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Originally Posted by dunfree

im more intrigued by the process of selecting jury duty members at this point. I assume it varies between courts (might be wrong) but it seems wacky and not conducive to good justice that some people only get called after decades or never at all, while others get called regularly.

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Its very weird. I've only been called twice in my life and they were back to back in a 2 year period in my late 20s. Nothing since. Bummed I was never called up, always wanted to do it.

I’ve never been called. But then I have only briefly lived as an adult in towns large enough to have a trial court facility. Perks of living in bumfuck nowhere.

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Originally Posted by californiagrown

My wife clerked for a few years. She has some pretty gnarly stories from cases her judge heard during her time there as he randomly was assigned a number of high profile violent crime cases.

Her advice for getting out of jury duty is to show up, but anytime you are instructed to not do something or it would disqualify you... immediately do it. Usually its them not wanting you to share personal details or something along those lines (job, age, first name, etc). And they will NEVER actually charge you with contempt, etc as thats just more paperwork the overworked staff has to do.

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This is the real trick. Been interviewed twice while in the box. Most notably it was a child abuse case and the questions came 'do you have kids' 'yes' 'would you be able to follow instructions in the strict application of the law with respect to child abuse' 'I'm not sure, as a father it depends on the circumstances as some things clearly cross a moral line, but laws have loopholes' (aka I'm not a puppet) 'have you had experience with court cases?' 'I've had experiences with lawyers and court cases, and from my experience I believe lawyers are masterful manipulators that spin and omit relevant details of the case as to best suit their needs and not serve justice.'

That last sentence got both the DA, the defense and the judge to throw me out all at once. Watching them all scribble me out on their placemat at the same time was great. And you don't have to act like a racist or a mouthbreathing dumbass either. Show up and be the smartest free thinking person in the room and own it.

The next time the questioning started and the defense lawyer filed a plea motion before I got into stride.

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Originally Posted by fastfred

being in a small town I get called for jury duty once a year
always get out of it pretty easy to do
if its criminal I know off the bat that most of the charges are garbage cause cops and the da throw anything at a person to see if the charges stick usually one charge is good enough but they will go with twelve or more counts if they can
my ex had 62 charges that was brilliant the prosecutor from the da's office dressed like shit and her whole court room demeanor and posture was that of an 11 year old it was embarrassing

tips for an A plus court room appearance my acting skills always pay off when battling w people (as long as your not the plaintiff or defendant) wear the shittiest clothes you have lucky for me I have nasty work clothes unfortunately hats are prohibited which is a bummer cause a greasy ball cap is a winner keep your mouth open at all times be a mouth breather I usually count things over and over when in the jury box ceiling tiles panels on the woodwork look for patterns in the flooring actually concentrate on all that stuff answer questions but don't answer them talk in circles act easily confused once I was asked about what I browse on the internet and I said alot of porn that didn't work out too well smile and wink at the plaintiffs lawyer or the prosecutor when being asked to leave

the fucking court system looks and seems intimidating but thats how lawyers and govt want it to be its actually pretty basic and somewhat easy to navigate once you get some experience this is the downfall of our society that people get caught up in the system and fucked over because public defenders are too strung out with too many clients paid too little all companies and da's want to avoid trials and hearings at all costs

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PUNCTUATION MOTHER FUCKER!!!! CAN YOU WRITE IT?????

Thank you for your non-service, slacker.

I swear I can scroll through this thread and spot people who probably show up high AF for jury duty. Some cologne, some visine, people who know are going to know anyway..

Fred, are you busy on Tuesday? I got a 3 dayer coming up.

Question for the field: would you rather have someone on the jury who doesn't want to be there or someone who really does?

doesn't by a country mile

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Originally Posted by MakersTeleMark

Fred, are you busy on Tuesday? I got a 3 dayer coming up.

Question for the field: would you rather have someone on the jury who doesn't want to be there or someone who really does?

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I don't do jury trials, so don't really get the nuance, but my gut would say what every lawyer always says, it depends. If I had a complex case and understanding my client's arguments required attention to detail, I'd want the juror who wanted to be there. If, otoh, a superficial view of the case was favorable to my client, I'd want the person who didn't want to serve.

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Originally Posted by MakersTeleMark

Question for the field: would you rather have someone on the jury who doesn't want to be there or someone who really does?

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The former, hands down.

The latter already is represented by the court. Those motives are regulated, the juror with an agenda not so much.

Not that I have any experience of a courtroom beyond observer whatsoever. Been called, but never presented on the stand.

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Originally Posted by MakersTeleMark

Fred, are you busy on Tuesday? I got a 3 dayer coming up.

Question for the field: would you rather have someone on the jury who doesn't want to be there or someone who really does?

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What the fuck does serving on a jury have to do with jury duty? I’ve been on jury duty ~10 times and not come near a courtroom. Only shown up to a courthouse once. But I ate shit for shitbag lawyers, which costs me and employers money for nothing. Which was the whole point of this thread. If you asked people “are you willing to serve on a jury tomorrow” they said yes (I would) then they showed up at the courthouse, and maybe some of them got tossed, your position would be viable

but that’s not jury duty, so fuck your sanctimonious shyster ass

jury duty - not jury service - is bull shit. And anyone who can’t understand the difference doesn’t belong on a jury

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Originally Posted by dunfree

What the fuck does serving on a jury have to do with jury duty? I’ve been on jury duty ~10 times and not come near a courtroom. Only shown up to a courthouse once. But I ate shit for shitbag lawyers, which costs me and employers money for nothing. Which was the whole point of this thread. If you asked people “are you willing to serve on a jury tomorrow” they said yes (I would) then they showed up at the courthouse, and maybe some of them got tossed, your position would be viable

but that’s not jury duty, so fuck your sanctimonious shyster ass

jury duty - not jury service - is bull shit. And anyone who can’t understand the difference doesn’t belong on a jury

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IPPS

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Originally Posted by MakersTeleMark

Fred, are you busy on Tuesday? I got a 3 dayer coming up.

Question for the field: would you rather have someone on the jury who doesn't want to be there or someone who really does?

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sure man
are you paying travel time 1:15 each way to eagle is about my average
how about putting me up with some milf in eagle instead of driving or maybe heidi is free and I can shack up with her for a few days?

about to resolve on of my many issues in life first thing out of my mouth was we will goto court I enjoy going to court tell your lawyers to call me so it took almost two months but we will settle this week

and to answer the question just finding someone with an open mind and willing to weigh the facts without to many personal biases is the person you want but those people are in short supply in this country these days you can be stupid or you can be brilliant but having an unbiased open mind is a rare thing

I get the letter petty regularly, every couple of years, but most of the time I have either been let out of the room without being called to a court room, or just called in and not had to report.

I have actually been in a court room three times. Once I already described. The second time I was never called into the box. The third time I ended up being in the box, but was dismissed.

Interestingly enough, both of the trials where I was called into the box were about lewd behavior, flashing or exposing oneself. I wonder what the odds of that are.

In both cases the trials were going to be short, only a few days according to the judge.

In the first situation, which I described 12 years ago in this thread, I liked the judge, and was more than willing to serve, but was dismissed by the prosecutor. I gave a hypothetical, which she clearly did not like. I was actually completely honest, and bringing up something I thought was an important issue. Because the trial was short I was not all that worried about being selected. I was in grad school and wore a Serial Killer t-shirt, I think the one with the picture of the Baywatch cast that said 'Orgy' or perhaps the one with Tony Montana above a big pile of coke that said 'Addict'. I had gone in not wanting to be selected, simply because I was worried about being on a trial for 6 months, not likely to happen but always a concern. Serving for 6 months would have fucked me pretty badly. Obviously it ended up being a moot point, the trial was short and the prosecutor didn't want me. I think it was probably more my answer than the shirt, although my guess is that I was 85% marked for death the moment I was seated in the box. One of my buddies who is a defense attorney says that at this point, he is 50 and has been doing this a while, he can usually tell if he is going to select someone or not immediately.

I get why I was not selected in that case, but the other time I was actually in the box was strange. It was about a decade ago, and having set in the big room without being selected several time I figured it made sense to dress in office clothes, so that I could head to work once I was dismissed. My office was not far away.

I got called into a court room around 1. I was called into the box at around 4 pm, as I recall. The defense attorney was asking everyone who came in whether or not the defendant was guilty. They were supposed to answer 'no' based on the fact that no evidence had yet been presented, and all basically did. I answered this way and was immediately dismissed by the prosecutor.

That dismissal was a bit of a mystery to me. I was dressed in office clothes, and didn't say anything that would seem problematic, but the prosecutor clearly didn't like something about me. A good judge of character I guess.

I would not have a problem with serving for a couple of days, if I didn't have a particularly pressing deadline. I would not want to do it, but I understand the system.

But being called for even a month would probably be a serious issue. The attorneys in this thread ( I realize it is not all of them) who seem to think that there is something wrong with that disgust me. You guys are getting paid and not having your lives turned upside down. If you were drafted to perform manual labor at minimum wage for 4 months to build low income housing would you do it without complaint? I doubt it. If your employer was not going to pay you for your time how would you feel about that? You guys really have no business lecturing people who don't want to do jury duty on their morality. I do know a few defense attorneys who are regularly in the courts, and they certainly understand why people would not want to serve.

CA gets jury service right from my experience so far. Check in the night before, see if they need you, if they do, you show up. I know there are times they settle on the courthouse steps and you’ll be sent home after showing up, but at least they try to accommodate you.


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Originally Posted by MakersTeleMark

Fred, are you busy on Tuesday? I got a 3 dayer coming up.

Question for the field: would you rather have someone on the jury who doesn't want to be there or someone who really does?

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Depends, in a civil case I’d probably take someone who wants to be there. In a criminal case I’d take someone who doesn’t want to be there.

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Originally Posted by neufox47

CA gets jury service right from my experience so far. Check in the night before, see if they need you, if they do, you show up. I know there are times they settle on the courthouse steps and you’ll be sent home after showing up, but at least they try to accommodate you.


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Deschutes county OR does the same thing.

So does my county in WA

i don’t really understand how jury duty works here. I just got a notice with a questionnaire to put me on the jury panel for all of 2023. No idea how that translates to a likelihood of serving.

The other 2 states I have been called in were for much shorter periods. Neither had an advance questionnaire either, just show up. One was coming in for a week (plus a second week on standby) and we got sent home after the first or second day as the docket cleared. The other state just calls you in for a single day. I ended up seated on a trial that ran for a week but most people are gone by the afternoon.

i really enjoyed my time even though it was a stupidass lawsuit. Happy to do it again as long as it isn’t a terrible scheduling conflict.

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Originally Posted by Long duc dong

But being called for even a month would probably be a serious issue. The attorneys in this thread ( I realize it is not all of them) who seem to think that there is something wrong with that disgust me. You guys are getting paid and not having your lives turned upside down. If you were drafted to perform manual labor at minimum wage for 4 months to build low income housing would you do it without complaint? I doubt it. If your employer was not going to pay you for your time how would you feel about that? You guys really have no business lecturing people who don't want to do jury duty on their morality. I do know a few defense attorneys who are regularly in the courts, and they certainly understand why people would not want to serve.

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FWIW, years back I read a bunch of court transcripts for work. Big corporate cases like patent disputes that could easily last 3 weeks or longer. I usually read the jury selection sections just out of curiosity.

I never once saw a judge be a dick about it. They were usually like “this is going to be a long trial, let me know if that’s gonna be a problem”. People whose work didn’t pay them for jury duty and for whom it would be a real hardship got excused easily.

On the flip side, a lot of judges were good at seeing though the BS excuses people use to get out of their duty. Like if you pretended to that you had some bias, they would push you really hard on it. You would have to be willing to look like a total POS to actually sell a lot of the excuses people online tell you to attempt.

Whelp, here I am waiting with about 175 others with the look of gloom on our faces. It’s like a visitation without the organ playing

The coffee sucks btw

A jury of your peers. lol

Ain’t nobody got time for this shit

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Fuuuuuck me, up-to 4 days of this…..guess not skiing this week