Sat bored in a room for 3 hours. Herded like cattle to a courtroom for jury selection. Sat THERE bored for 3 hours. Wasn’t selected. Went home.
Mixed emotions. Process was kind of neat. They give you a pep talk telling you about the importance of trial by jury and how valuable they are to the American justice system, etc. The jury selection wasn’t bad.
The part that scared me was…we had some of the most incompetent people I’ve ever seen in this group. I mean they were DUMB! I ended up getting stuck at the end of the line and during Voire Dire and was scared to open my mouth as I would likely talk my way into a seat on the jury.
Also didn’t help that, I believe, the plaintiff’s attorney let the cat out of the bag that the “trial could take 2-3 weeks.” Just about the entire jury pool about groaned simultaneously. Not to mention that as a result, everyone spent the next hour and a half trying to make up any excuse they could to be dismissed.
IIRC, I was about 35 of 40… They called #1-#12. Dismissed about half of them, called #13-#19. Replaced two more and that was what they went with.
I was called about seven years ago to serve on municipal court. Got as far as voir dire, but they seated the first twelve and I was #14.
The month of February I am serving on the federal petit jury. No action today or tomorrow and I call each Friday to see if I’m needed for the following week. For my trouble, I’ll earn the princely sum of $40 per day, which I’ll have to surrender to my employer if it’s on a work day (as my employer pays us our normal pay for serving), 44.5 cents a mile and $8/day to park.
I could have a civil or a criminal case. The former would stink because I’ve been practicing saying “HANG HIM!” for weeks.
As I mentioned in my post, I have been eligible for jury duty for forty years. I am registered to vote. I have a driver’s license. I am not an ex-felon. I’ve had the same mailing address for more than two decades. Humph. This has gotta be discrimination. I bet they just don’t want redheads on their ferschlugginer juries.
About 15 years ago I was called for county jury duty. I was only required to go to the courthouse once, and I wasn’t picked for the trial.
A couple weeks after that was over, I got a letter from the Federal court asking me to serve. I got out of that one, since I had two young kids and the court was an hour and a half drive from where I lived.
I’ve never been called since, and my husband has never been called at all.
Eesh! I’d be happy to swap places with those of you who have never had to serve. I guess one of the drawbacks of living in a small county is that I have to serve a four month stint of jury duty every two years. That means I’ve had to serve 15 or 16 times because I think I got out of one once when I was working out of state. The good thing is that most terms I’ve only had to show up in court two or three times in the period and once we didn’t have to appear at all.
Oops, I forgot one. Years ago I was shopping at the grocery store across from the courthouse when the bailiff came in and on the order of the judge, conscripted all shoppers to fill a pool without enough people. They made us abandon our shopping baskets and gave us a couple quarters, a phone and five minutes to make arrangements. That one pissed me off!
Have been called several times, used to get it postponed due to studies, or transferred due to being a caregiver. A couple of calls ago, I got as far as the voir dire stage, then got dismissed. The last time, maybe a year ago or so, I called in for a few evenings, never had to go, and they ended my service time early that week.
