Why the equivocation? You ARE a lawyer and you DO think that.
OK, but since we would mainly be doing it to accommodate big earners like yourself why don’t we pay it by bumping the upper tax bracket. You know, progressive taxation. 
Currently I would describe it as a “flat tax”, but since the expertise that earns you higher income isn’t really meant to be drawn upon while serving on a jury, that seems fair to me.
$9 a day is pretty darn ridiculous though. That barely pays for lunch.
missed edit window: I meant that first bit lightheartedly, I know you were describing the reasoning for the exemption.
I am one laywer. I can not speak for all lawyers, and I can not speak for the government that sets the rules.
For example, here are a few paragraphs from a case summary concerning a class exemption for trustees in bankruptcy http://casselsbrock.com/publicationdetail.asp?aid=325&pid=3 :
“In relieving trustees across Ontario from jury duty, the Court first noted that the weight of authority and several principles of statutory interpretation support the conclusion that trustees in bankruptcy and receivers are traditionally regarded as “officers of the Court”. As Court officers, trustees and receivers are accountable to the Court in their exercise of what can be characterized as their quasi-judicial responsibilities.”
“The Court went on to note that it was consistent with the purposes of the Juries Act that persons who have the potential to exert influence over other jurors or to pre-judge matters due to their legal knowledge be removed. In the case of trustees in bankruptcy and receivers, they may have certain specialized knowledge, which would affect their role as jurors and other jurors may defer to them because of their positions. Clearly, either of these results would not be desirable in achieving an impartial jury.”
“Finally, the court was persuaded by the fact that trustees in bankruptcy perform critical functions within the administration of justice and their selection as jurors could leave a gap in the services that they are otherwise required to fulfill in society. This point follows from the fact that because of the nature of their office, trustees in bankruptcy are not permitted to delegate certain functions to others and, requiring them to serve as jurors, would unnecessarily burden them with conflicting and competing societal responsibilities.”
Where I reside (Ontario, Canada), we have progressive taxation. I am not concerned about ensuring rich folks’ income streams. What I am concerned about is ensuring the meeting of the average Joe’s expenses. If jury duty is so financially burdensome that people of average and low incomes try to avoid jury duty, then the pool of potential jurors disproportionately loses average and low income earners. That is a bad thing.
I got called during one of my crazy college semesters when I was taking 20+ credit hours. They wouldn’t dismiss me, but they deferred me to the summer. I only ended up serving for two days, so it wasn’t so bad, but they made it clear that I had to be around for the summer, so if I had plans to be elsewhere it would have sucked.
I got called here last year. At the time, I was the only adult physician in our practice, so me being out meant that a lot of patient care didn’t happen and my staff (nurses, billing, front desk, etc.) would be short on work as well. A lawyer friend of mine was happy to ask the judge about it for me, and he let me out without any argument.
My boss made it a policy last year that he wouldn’t pay for time off for jury service–it had to come out of vacation time or be unpaid leave. He did it that way so that the employee could claim financial hardship, which usually gets one excused around here. It sucks to do it that way, IMO, but we are a medical clinic in an underserved area, so I don’t feel that bad about it.
CarnalK, I’m NOT saying I’d have a nervous breakdown-where did you get that? I only said if I had to decide a death penalty or murder trial, I would feel extremely troubled by it.
As for a small civil trial, I suppose I could probably suck it up. If it were more than that, I don’t know.
Well I just wondered if this bit from page 2 was more the reason you didn’t want to go:
Didn’t quite take that to mean murder trials only. I didn’t think this meant you would have a nervous breakdown; I was just making a suggesting for if it meant that.
Are you seriously suggesting that our current system ends up with disproportionate number of high income citizens as jurors? I highly doubt the rich try to avoid jury duty any less than their poorer fellow citizens. Seems like you’re trying to have it both ways: earlier you were saying that rich people lose more money but for some reason poor people will try harder to get out of it. Doesn’t make sense.
Quite the opposite. I don’t have any stats, but my experience in picking juries is that there is a disproportionate number of people in the potential juror pool on social assistance, for they do not need to dodge jury duty for financial reasons the way so many low and middle income earners do.
To put it bluntly, if you are to be tried by a jury of your peers, would you want the jury to be composed disproportinately of people who can not even hold down a job?
When I was on the Grand Jury, it was mostly retired dudes, and the Presiding Judge said that was common. Retired dudes have the experience, the time, and no income to lose.
Sure, why not? I assume when I get sued or arrested for attacking some guy then it’ll be against someone richer than me - so a poor jury will be more on my side. If I attacked some guy who was poorer than me I’d have just called the cops on him.
But seriously, you are being sort of inconsistent. I have trouble reconciling these two points that you made, unless you are discounting people on welfare from being “low income”.:
(my bolding)
In many parts of the US and Canada, I’m not sure that big a difference between the low wagers and the welfare cases can be drawn- so I’m not sure that’s a valid way to look at it.
I made it to the end of the selection process for a murder trial where the death penalty was an option, and I think I can say that anyone who didn’t feel troubled by the prospect should be excluded. The guy got convicted, and the penalty phase is going on now. Even getting as far as I got in the process made me think very hard.
Would you want a jury full of people who would say “hang the fucker” without a second thought?
urk. mea culpa. Now I get what you mean, losing the one day of work is more onerous on poorer paid people - that’s what separates them from check-per-monthers. Fair enough.
I already agreed that 9$ a day is ludicrous. I would support a minimum wage for jury members for sure. What I think we disagree upon is that higher paid people deserve more compensation when doing jury duty. That is, if I do understand you when you say that your “issue is with the financial inequity suffered by jurors”.
When a person I know was called for federal jury duty for a capital offense, they dismissed anyone from the jury pool who was against the death penalty.
Well, of course not! I’m just saying that I couldn’t ever decide a death penalty case. I’m far too anti-capital punishment.
Still, again, I don’t know if I could do it. 
You’re right, and I think we’ve hit on something here. Instead of fairly compensating fireman and police, we should pay them 5 bucks a day for their services, saving the taxpayers more money.
The judges and prosecutors? Well, they have invested time and money in their advanced educations, so we should pay them the handsome sum of $10 per day.
Now don’t spend it all in one place! And think of the tax savings.
/sarcasm off
Can we have a fact check, please? How many people worth > $10M have been called to serve on a jury within the past 10 years and how many got exemptions?
That’s $10 more per day than I’ll be getting for chairing a tribunal this Wednesday.
Weird to see this bumped. I thought it was older.
But hey, don’t turn off that sarcasm yet. Why don’t we just turn things around. We’ll assign the firemen and policemen to act as full-time jurors and we can randomly select people by mail to act as emergency services and lawyers for 10 dollars a day.
Your “job” as juror is simply to listen to a recount of events and give your common man’s opinion. Anyone who isn’t mentally disabled can do that and to compare it to the jobs of the trained professionals is a little silly, frankly. And in case you missed it, I said somewhere earlier in the thread that I agree $10 was ludicrous but I fear that much higher pay may be problematic and I disagree that juror pay should be linked to regular income.
Did this really need a bump?
Mayor Bloomburg of NYC was called for jury duty in August. He reported but wasn’t chosen for any jury. He’s worth about $5 billion.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/mayor-bloomberg-reports-for-jury-duty/