One of my summons put me in the pool for a drug possession case. A question the judge posed to our group of potential jurors was for anyone raise their hand if they had a relative or close friend convicted of drug possession.
Well over of 3/4 of them raised their hand. :eek:
G.K. came to an interesting and thoughtful conclusion. But one thing made me wonder:
So apparently only men were considered worthy of jury duty. When did women start to be included? Was it when we got the vote? Which in the UK took place piecemeal over the period 1918–1928.
About this poll: Is it really true that 82% of people get summoned? Or is the poll skewed because those of us who’ve never been summoned are more likely to pass by the poll without answering? I’ve been a registered voter for 31 years and nary a hint that any court knows I even exist. (But then maybe that’s something to be thankful for.)
The idea that courts get their lists of prospective jurors is false at least in some places. The Chief Magistrate of Tift County, Georgia told me they use driver’s license lists.
In Alaska the use the Permanent Fund Dividend list. I think it’s different for each State.
I’ve been summoned a bunch of times, but only served on a jury once… it was very interesting, and I’d be happy to do it again.
The verdict was a unanimous “not guilty, an don’t do it again!”
I’ve been summoned twice; wasn’t picked the first time, but ended up as the first alternate the second time. It was a robbery case, and the defendent was up for his third strike. He was convicted after a week. As an alternate, I had to sit around alot with not much to do. I did, however, learn some important rules about being a Juror:
When the Judge calls your number during the selection process, you should remember to sit in that same seat the next day. The Judge gets a little testy when he has to stop the proceedings because you decided to sit in the back of the courtroom instead of your assigned seat. “Could you please tell the Court why you’re not in your assigned seat?” never sounds good as you’re tripping your way over everyone’s feet back up to the Jurors Box.
When the Court breaks for lunch, the Courtroom is locked so that the Prosecution and Defense lawyers can huddle around the Bench, and confer with the Judge. Knocking loudly on the door so that the Bailiff can retrieve your cigarettes that accidently fell under your chair is apparently not accepted behavior for alternates.
When you’re first entering the Courthouse, be sure that you do not have a handcuff key on your key ring, as the young lady screening your personal effects will most likely ask “Will you be needing your handcuff key tonight?” Your response of “I’m not sure; are you busy?” will immediately get the full attention of the 5 Sheriff’s Deputies who are on the other side of the X-Ray machine.
I swear I typed something like “the idea that courts get their prospective juror lists from voters’ registration lists”…
oops.
I love doing jury duty. I’ve been summoned 3 times before I finally got picked to serve.
I got kicked off a criminal drug case for giving an anecdote about my experience of being pulled over by a friendly cop, and got kicked off a civil unlawful termination case for expressing my opinion on how much I hate unions.
I learned the best way to get picked: just say “I can be impartial and weigh all the evidence presented before forming a conclusion.”
I finally got picked to serve in 2009
My case was school child that ran out in front of a truck and got hit and suffered brain damage.
The plaintiff was the child and family suing the City of Los Angeles for millions of $$$ for negligence and medical expenses. The defendant was the City of Los Angeles.
The plaintiff blamed the Los Angeles Unified School District for a negligent crossing guard, and the defense said the crossing guard’s duty is to safely cross children in his/her designated crosswalk only and any child that crosses a street outside that intersection is outside that crossing guard’s duty.
The jury and myself gave the verdict for the defendant because the child ran into the road half a block away from the nearest crossing guard where she was struck by a truck.
Crossing guards can’t protect a child 1/2 a block away from their designated intersection.
I hope I get a jury summons again soon.
No, in New York City when serving on a grand jury you can choose to either do the narcotics panel, which hears nothing but drug cases, or the general grand jury which hears all cases.
His other example was of a jury trial for grand theft, not a grand jury.
Alaska is a unique case in North America of Native land management.
If voter rolls aren’t the source of potential juror lists, then when did women begin to be seated in juries? In the UK and US?
Nope, never served, never contacted.
This. Some states use driver license, some voter registration, some both.
I have served on a petit jury in Virginia when I lived there, an animal abuse case. Guy brought sled dogs down from someplace up north, and he didn’t keep them according to the local laws. I think from what I know he kept them in pretty standard conditions for sled dogs, but that wasn’t good enough. (And I don’t know why he brought them with him when he moved to Virginia. Not like there is a huge amount of snow for sledding in the winter.) We followed the law, he lost the dogs, and they were all destroyed. :smack:
I was on a Grand Jury a few years ago here in Ohio. Met on Friday at the beginning of the month for 4 months. Was interesting and fun, would love to do it again. Only had one case we didn’t indict the accused. The assistant prosecutor that was running the case asked why we didn’t indict. We told him the supposed victim was hard to believe, and inconsistent in his testimony, the physical evidence was shaky, and there were no other witnesses presented. He said if he had known that we would not indict he would have had more witnesses testify. He seemed to think it was our fault he did a poor job of presenting his case.
Wish I would get a summons again, for either kind of jury. But a Federal Grand Jury would be really fun. 
Yes, kind of. I was summoned to go for jury duty and showed up on the day of selection without anything to read and was sent off to the waiting room with 100 other people who didn’t want to be there. I wasn’t particularly interested in a sitting through a long trial. A bailiff came in and announced that a “Public Institutions Inspection Panel” was 1 person short and would like a volunteer. He said it would be 1 weeks worth of work. I knew that I had 2 days of selection and potentially a long trial ahead of me, or a guarantee of only 5 days. Everyone else in the room looked away hoping that they could go home, but I volunteered.
The week went fast as we visited police stations, hospitals, detention facilities to see if public money is being spent wisely and that conditions are acceptable. We usually had lunch provided and had to write a report to the judge. At the end of the week we handed in our report and were excused.
At work we’ve had 3 people serve in the last month. 1 was chosen but excused as she was a lawyer in another country, one was not selected, and 1 went through a 3 week murder trial.
In Ontario the jurors are not allowed to talk about the trial…ever. We found out some of the procedure, but no details of the trial. They were allowed to take notes and when sent for deliberation they were sequestered with no form of communication allowed. They were provided instruction from the judge as to the possible verdicts and given a 200 page binder of questionaires/forms that they had to fill out to render a verdict. It took them 3-1/2 days to work their way through it.
Holy crap. I’ve never heard of that onerous a set of jury interrogatories, even in complicated mass tort or class action lawsuits.
When I lived in Florida I was called for Jury duty 5 times. 3 of the 5 I actually sat on the jury. One of those three times I was the alternate (a fact they don’t tell you until It’s time to deliberate) and didn’t get to cast my vote for guilty or not-guilty.
First case: Drunk guy caused a ruckus in a Perkins at 3:00 am charged with trespassing. Guilty
Second case: Guy accused of assault against his (now estranged wife). This was an interesting case involving a couple who were into swinging and drugs and a lot of that came out in the testimony but in the end it was he said/she said and we couldn’t be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. Plus the injury she supposedly sustained at his hands amounted to a tiny scratch on her ankle (there were pictures). His defense attorney was very good. The prosecuting attorneys looked very young and really seemed like they didn’t know what they were doing.
Third case (the one where I was the alternate) involved a guy named Willy Whetstone and another guy named Joey Rizzo. I swear this one could have been a movie. Joey was trolling for crack, Willy had crack. Joey and Willy made some kind of blow job for crack arrangement that ended badly with Willy stealing Joey’s car and leading police on a high speed chase through Sanford, FL until he finally crashed the car. The details of the crack/blowjob deal were graphically spelled out for us and we got to hear about everything that happened, in detail.
None of these cases lasted more than one day, start to finish. It was fun. I’d do it again.
That’s not how it’s done in our court, but I think it’s the better practice. I’m afraid the alternates can’t help but let their minds wander a bit during trial, knowing it’s unlikely they’ll be called upon to actually deliberate.
I should clarify. He said that the 200 page binder was filled with questionnaires that needed to be filled out. Depending on the result at the end of the page they were instructed to proceed to a different page, essentially following a flow chart. I don’t know how many pages needed to be filled out for the trial he attended (second-degree murder and aggravated assault). I can’t find information on the questionnaire online.
I was called for jury duty maybe 8 times, and actually served twice. In the first case, I was an alternate on a murder trial. The two guys got into a fight over $10, one guy ran into his house, came back with a gun, shot the other guy in the eye and killed him. I thought it was interesting, especially since the court had a translator for several of the witnesses because they were speaking ghetto English. I learned what a hoopty was.
The second trial was a civil suit, and I was foreman. (I wasn’t elected, but by virtue of being picked first and seated in chair 1.) It had something to do with a woman who answered a newspaper ad placed by a shady insurance company. The woman won the trial, but we didn’t give her as much as she wanted. This trial was great because the judge had retired, but was brought back by the city on a part-time basis to help clear the docket. He had lunch engagements every day, so we often had a 2 or 3 hour lunch break. We were walking distance from the [Baltimore] Inner Harbor, and there was a great used book store near the courthouse; it was almost like being on vacation. I stretched the deliberations out as long as I could.
I heard of a case once in our courthouse where the judge became convinced that the jury had stretched out their deliberations in order to get the pizza that had been promised for them that night, so after they announced their verdict he grumpily sent them home without the meal.
Got a summons, was the first one to stand up, got picked right away. We convicted a slimeball of offing his girlfriend with a steam iron. Only second degree, much to my chagrin. The autopsy photos were the worst.