Any way to impove your chance of being picked for Jury Duty?

In My Humble Opinion
21

What, really? :slight_smile: No, I don’t mean to suggest I disbelieve you, as I actually find it quite cute in a way. It’s much like the tales of people who want to marry without a fuss, so they just grab a couple of witnesses from whatever passers-by happen to be around.

After all, it still mostly fits in with the normal idea of random selection of the adult population, and I expect any person called like that would be subject to the same “many are called but few are chosen” thing as those done by the blindly sticking of pins into the electoral register method, but it just is sort of cute and funny. One imagines all sorts of bad happenings in the whatever locality - weather problems leading to complete breakdown of transport thus non-appearance of the predicted pool of potential jurors, unexpected nuclear strike leading to shortage of people and so on. Large percentage of potential juror pool eaten by dragons, that sort of thing.

But the only times I was called, well, the normal way, is “this here letter says you MUST, you simply MUST, turn up (or 'phone giving your reference number to find whether you must, or need not) at the High Court on Monday the nth, otherwise we shall be MOST displeased, and you would not like us when we are displeased, oh no! Otherwise, find a good excuse, like advanced old age or a medical reason, which must be certified by your doctor and sent it to us in official-type writing damn fast.”

But, come to think of it, just grabbing potential jurors from the street at least does away with the inability thing, doesn’t it? I mean, anyone happily going about their business when grabbed by the keen young court-attendant person is, by definition, not in hospital dying of the Black Death, so that’s one objection done away with.

Of course, were I the evil criminal due to be tried, and were I to know of this idiosyncratic system, I might just want to persuade some friends to “happen” to be passing by the court at the appropriate time (Hmmmm … there is potential. Do we have any Dopers who could write a short comedy based on this whole lovely idea of juror selection the easy way? :slight_smile: )

So then, for the O.P. Mr. Shine, perhaps take a day off work and loiter around the court. Take some sandwiches and water/fruit juice, sit around ever so nonchalantly and, you know, just lurk around and see if anyone solicits your services. :slight_smile:

Of course, it just might be the local police enquiring as to precisely why you are so determinedly loitering around … :smiley:

22

The answer a judge gave us is to be on a jury before. He said that they somehow select people who they know will turn up. It seems to work - I’ve been called twice in the three years after the first I was on.

In California the calls come from the drivers license rolls and the voting rolls - so if your name is spelled differently on these, you’ll have two shots. But it mostly seems random. I lived for 15 years in NJ, voting every year, and never got called once. I got called a few years after moving to California, then once the next four, and then a lot in the last three.

I’ve never seen any bias on education. People in Silicon Valley used to say engineers would never be selected, for being too logical, but that hasn’t been the case.

23

There’s a lot of randomness involved in being called. I’ve been registered to vote for 31 years and I’ve been a property owner for 23 years. I’ve been called once in all that time (about 15 years ago), and made it as far as voire dire. They picked juror #14 just before they got to me, so I went home and haven’t been called since.

My father was called four times in one year–and served two of them.

24

I’m another one who wouldn’t mind serving on a jury. I’ve always been interested in that stuff, even the boring parts. But I’m 36 and have been registered to vote since I was 18, and I’ve only gotten one jury duty notice – and when I called the court that morning, I was told that I wasn’t needed. So I didn’t even get a day off from work. :frowning:

25

Put the law of supply and demand to work. Find a county that has a small population and high crime rate, and move there. Of course, this will also increase your chances of being in court as a victim, a situation you’d probably just as soon avoid…

26

I got called several times when I lived in Boston, only a couple of times since I moved out to the semi-boonies. Mostly I sat around the jury pool room and never got taken into a courtroom for empanelment. With two exceptions:

For a civil trial, the judge introduced the lawyers, the parties, and names of some prospective witnesses and asked if we knew them. The plaintiff’s name was unusual and it hit me – I knew how to spell it. The judge gave a brief description of what the case was about and it hit me – several months before, I’d proofread some pretrial discovery depositions in the case for the court reporters who’d taken them. Oddly enough, when the attorneys learned that fact, neither side wanted me on that jury. :wink:

The other case was criminal. We the jury pool were given the usual instructive spiel, waited about, got taken into a courtroom, waited about while the attorneys whispered with the judge at sidebar, got taken back to the jury pool room, waited about, and were finally treated to the judge entering to personally thank us and inform us that the defendant, after taking a good look at the panel of his peers ready to sit in judgment on his case, had chosen to plead guilty.

27

I’ve been “called” twice. Once in NC in 1982, and once here (VA), a couple months ago. Dunno why it’s taken so long for them to call me - we’ve lived here since 1989, have a house (property tax), pay income taxes, have drivers’ licenses etc. You’d think the pool of qualified jurors would be such that we’d get called a bit more often but I guess not.

In 82 I did my day sitting around waiting then was sent home. This time around, I was torn between wanting to serve, and realizing that medically I really could not (sleep disorder, highly unlikely I could have stayed awake). I wound up not being needed either of my two days.

Typo was called - and actually served for one short trial - in 1995 but until yesterday, never heard from them again. He just got his questionnaire so it’s likely he’ll get his call some time this winter. Oh - and he’s got a PhD and was not booted during that earlier trial.

28

That would be my answer: live and register to vote in a county where a low percentage of the populations does so but with a lot of court cases. I never get called. My coworkers who live in Baltimore City County get called all the time.

29

Simple answer is, “it depends.”

If a lawyer intends to present a complicated case, he wants jurors smart enough to understand what he’s telling them. On the other hand, the opposing counsel will probably prefer jurors too dumb to understand the arguments.

Crude example: if a prosecutor’s case relies heavily on scientific expert testimony and DNA evidence, he’ll want jurors bright enough to know what DNA is and smart enough to understand probability. The defense team will want jurors who DON’T understand such things (“DNA, schmee-N-A, that’s just a bunch of scientific mumbo jumbo!”).

30

And bear in mind, MOST court cases are neither exciting nor high profile. Most are pretty mundane affairs.

I’ve been called for jury duty 3 times, and only served once. The two times I was rejected, it was due to sheer dumb luck: I drew a high number, and they picked almost all of the people who sat in the front two rows!

In each case, the lawyers asked only perfunctory questions, and rejected only one or two people who seemed like utter idiots.

So, in a high profile case with big bucks and/or long jail sentences at stake, lawyers may get extremely selective. But in a more petty case, they’ll probably just take the first 12 people in the jury pool, so long as they don’t say anything really goofy our outrageous during voir dire.

31

I’ve never been called up yet but I figure that’s because this state doesn’t have much crime. We rarely average as many as 20 murders a year statewide nor ever have scandals like enron, so how many crimes that involve juries can we possibily have?

Oooo, maybe those folks from Plainsfield who hid out from the government for a few years will go to trial for tax evasion.

32

I worked for a criminal defense lawyer that did federal and state cases, and education has never been, to my knowledge, much of a factor in selecting juries. Astorian’s explanation sounds pretty reasonable. But, from the cases I’ve seen tried, ranging from simple to complicated, there seemed to be a wide range of education in the jurors. All of the cases I’ve seen have had jurors with college degrees, both bachelor’s and even master’s and Ph.Ds.

My guess is that it’s rather unlikely that you would get kicked out for that reason alone, but I’m sure some lawyers may take that into more consideration than the ones I worked for. (I know one lawyer would even ask silly questions like “do you prefer red or blue” as some sort of voodoo insight on one’s personality. Whatever.)

Anyhow, the only voir dire I’ve participated, I got booted off the jury (I would guess because I worked for criminal defense lawyers, or perhaps [more likely] because I had a friend who was a victim of the same crime as that that was being prosecuted. From what I remember, education was not even a question asked in voir dire.)

33

My understanding is California courts use both registered voters and those who have driver’s licenses to select those who are called.

My personal experience is the first time I was called for jury duty was to the Federal court in San Diego, and I was seated as an alternate for a marijuana smuggling & sales case. Though I remained an alternate for the entire trial and thus did not participate in deliberations, I found the parts I was involved in fascinating.

Since then every time I have been called has been to the state court. And without exception each time that I have been included in voir dire I have been dismissed by one of the sides, more often than not with their first peremptory challenge.

34

I’m happy to hear that a Ph.D isn’t going to keep me off a jury. I certainly don’t want to be on one until I finish grad school, I don’t want to be excluded after.

35

You can’t volunteer for jury duty in Wisconsin. I asked. The pool comes from people with drivers licenses (they don’t include voter registrations or AFAIK non-DL state IDs). I’ve received exactly one jury notice ever and wasn’t needed. I’m so jealous of people who get called time and again.

ETA: If the OP would divulge his location we’d be able to find the jury pool rules for his state.

36

I sat on a civil jury about…oh, five months after getting my law degree. I was amazed they kept me on, to be honest. I think the fact that I’d only worked in criminal law was the reason they kept me.

In the end, the case was pretty much open-and-shut, to the point that I wondered why it was even tried at all.

37

I’ve been called about a half-dozen times, but only got on a panel my the last time. Maybe if your advanced education was long enough ago, they don’t care anymore. :slight_smile:

Also, in California, at least, counsel is allowed significantly fewer exemptions than used to be the case; so I think if you are called you have a better chance of having to actually participate in a trial.

38

Oh yeah, I’m like the OP. I always wanted to do it, and was glad I had the chance.

His Honor had been up so late the night before working on his instructions to the jury, that he fell asleep while reading them to us. Good fun.

39

On the trial I was recently in, we had a civil engineer in the pool who was the project manager for one of the L.A. Metro’s rail lines…they got rid of him quickly. The case involved a defendant who ran over a victim, twice, in a car. Fortunately it was a very small car so the victim was able to limp away from it. I wonder if they thought the engineer would have influenced the rest of us with special knowledge about the forces involved when a car runs over someone.

I was intentionally vague about my work in IT and perhaps made it sound “lower” than it is, because I wanted to be chosen.