# Emergency Jury Duty -- Legal Basis? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 18, 2008, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-jury-duty-legal-basis/433978 "2008-01-18T04:12:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![IAmNotSpartacus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@IAmNotSpartacus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IAmNotSpartacus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-jury-duty-legal-basis/433978/1 "2008-01-18T04:12:09Z")
I’m not a lawyer, you’re not a lawyer, hell I don’t even live in the state where this happened. That said, I [read today](http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=84623) that a court in Colorado had issued emergency jury duty summonses requiring immediate service, and court clerks were handing them out and threatening non-abiders with contempt of court citations. So, what basis does the court have to immediately summon people to jury duty, apparently without regard for their prior professional or scholastic obligations? I can’t figure out if it would qualify as a detention with (or without) probable cause, unjust taking, some other rights violation, or none of the above. It seems to me that this kind of thing is very fishy, although I know the government would never break the law for any reason whatsoever… :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-jury-duty-legal-basis/433978/2 "2008-01-18T05:06:35Z")
[Here](http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/surprise-instant-jury-duty-for-shoppers/?hp) is a blog posting from the New York Times about a similar situation, this time in Vermont. (Sheriff and deputies sent to the post office, supermarket and mall to round up jurors.) The article mentions that this sort of thing was ruled unconstitutional in Indiana, but legal in Pennsylvania and also that a similar thing was done in North Carolina. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-jury-duty-legal-basis/433978/3 "2008-01-18T05:21:52Z")
It’s called summoning talesmen, as outlined by this wiki article on [jury selection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_selection#Jury_pool): > [@](#): > > Jurors are then picked by a selection process. If a jury pool is exhausted without the jury being completed, the clerk of the court is required to ask the jury assembly area to send more jurors. If additional jurors are not immediately available in the jury assembly area, most jurisdictions permit the court to impanel a **tales** jury (pronounced tal-ays). A tales jury in one in which the jurors or **talesmen** are brought to the court under judicial order to law enforcement to pick up qualified individuals from any public place in the community. This is a departure from the more common procedure of selecting jurors randomly from a broad-based list of names. The legislature would have to enact a statute authorising summonsing talesmen. For example, here’s the provision from the [Criminal Code](http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowDoc/cs/C-46/bo-ga:l_XIX_1::bo-ga:l_XX//en?page=13&isPrinting=false#codese:642) of Canada: > [@](#): > > \*\*Summoning other jurors when panel exhausted > > 642.\*\* (1) If a full jury and any alternate jurors considered advisable cannot be provided notwithstanding that the relevant provisions of this Part have been complied with, the court may, at the request of the prosecutor, order the sheriff or other proper officer to summon without delay as many persons, whether qualified jurors or not, as the court directs for the purpose of providing a full jury and alternate jurors. > > **Orally** > > (2) Jurors may be summoned under subsection (1) by word of mouth, if necessary. > > **Adding names to panel** > > (3) The names of the persons who are summoned under this section shall be added to the general panel for the purposes of the trial, and the same proceedings shall be taken with respect to calling and challenging those persons, excusing them and directing them to stand by as are provided in this Part with respect to the persons named in the original panel. As for it being unconstitutional, aside from the short notice, how is it different from any other jury service, where the individual is compelled by law to provide their services to the court as a juror? ---
**Author:** ![Neptunian\_Slug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce7236/32.png) [@Neptunian\_Slug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neptunian_Slug)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/emergency-jury-duty-legal-basis/433978/4 "2008-01-18T06:55:28Z")
My dad was walking by the Federal courthouse in Birmingham back in the late 40’s and got Shanghaied by a US Marshal into jury duty. So a shortage of jurors is not an entirely new problem. Admittedly though in 1940s Birmingham, a large segment of the population wasn’t able to get registered to vote.