It’s slated to start at the end of the month; I’m #409 FWIW.
I’ve been called up once before, in 1996, and I was hoping I would be selected because I was about to be laid off (business relocation) and tensions were high around the workplace. However, my number was too high, and I didn’t have to show up.
I’m curious to hear about how this will work in the era of COVID.
Are you trying to get on the panel, or excused?
I’m not in a high risk group for COVID, nor am I an essential worker, so I’ll just let the chips fall where they may.
I don’t understand this. When I’ve received a summons for this, it’s been to a jury pool. Everyone had to show up and once the pool whas whittled down, those of us not selected were informed to check out at the court clerk’s office to show we had satisfied our obligation.
This was in Monterey County, California.
Same here, the two or three times that I’ve done it, it wasn’t by number. As they needed us, they’d call us based on IIRC, based on what our last name started with it. When they didn’t need anymore people, the rest of us were dismissed.
I suppose whether you’re assigned a number or they go in alphabetical order or any number of other things, they’re still choosing randomly.
ISTM, with covid, they’d be better off having the majority of the people as reserve jurors that wait at home and get called in if needed. It’s better than having 100 people sitting around in a room watching TV for 8 hours. Have enough on hand to get started and call people in as the day progresses.
Agreed. FWIW, this was 15 or 16 years ago, well before COVID-19.
Where I live, they start with the lowest numbers and go from there. I won’t know if I need to report until Friday the 25th, for Monday.
There are lots of ways to pick juries. When I first started as a judge’s assistant (person in the courtroom responsible for swearing in jurors, calling them to the box for voir dire and liaising with Jury Services, among other things), I used a 6-sided metal wheel to spin the tickets, then randomly pulled them and called each person to the box. By the time I left many years later, a computer randomized the names of the prospective jurors and we just called out the names in order from the roster that was provided to us by Jury Services.
We could have easily adapted either system to calling in only a manageable number of jurors while the rest waited at home.
Respect to anyone willing to do their civic duty and sit as a juror. Best to you, @nearwildheaven. I hope it’s a good case if you end up serving.
@Monty, I once spent 2 months picking a jury + 6 alternate jurors for a lengthy, high-profile case we tried in Monterey County due to a change of venue from our adjacent county. We traveled with the case. Fun times, living in 2 places for 6 months. This was in 2000-01, thereabouts. Maybe you were one of our prospective jurors. If you were, I promise you’d remember it.
(I must admit I did miss the old metal wheel when we retired it, the drama of calling out each name as I drew each ticket. I still have that old thing around here somewhere.)
My mother sat on a rape case one time (hoo boy, she never wanted to do THAT again!) and my SIL has been seated twice. Both of those were for lawsuits; the first one was totally open-and-shut, and in the second one, the parties walked into the courtroom, saw the jurors, and said, “We’ll settle this out of court.”
That happens a lot, the late settlements. Things get very real when jurors show up.
My wife and I have both been in the jury pool for our county for several months now. Our obligation ends October 10th. There have been no trials held during this time, so I’m wondering if they might just send out a letter saying we’ve been extended for another three months or so.
Where we used to live I was on one trial for theft and I was on a Federal Grand Jury back in the late 70’s. That was fun for 18 months.
Aren’t the parties to the case involved in jury selection?
Maybe it just doesn’t feel real to the parties until there’s a packed jurors’ box, a judge on the bench, and a bailiff there?
I’ve been called in for jury duty but never gotten as far as voir dire. I’m told lawyers tend not to get picked anyway, but I just got a summons (which I deferred to Thanksgiving) so we’ll see. They may have to take what they can get these days.
Last time I was called was right after a one of my knee injuries so I told them I’d need special accommodation. They told me not to come in and send them a note from a doctor. Then the doctor became the problem, he wouldn’t write a note excusing me from jury duty. I contacted the jury commissioner and he told me doctors can’t excuse people from jury duty, that was his job. The doctor just needs to say I’m being treated. After a number of calls to the doctors office they finally sent a note saying I was being treated putting an end to the sad affair.
I’d love to do jury duty and have been called twice that I can remember. Both times I called and mentioned that as a small business owner I could not afford to pay my employees for time I wouldn’t be there generating income. They excused me, but I’d rather they’d offered $$$ for employee compensation.
Similarly in my county. You either call a pre-recorded line or check in on line and you find out if your number needs to report. Last time my number came up, they only needed 6 people plus 2 alternates, and I didn’t make the cut. That was several years back.
It’s the prerecorded line here. You are in a pool for a month or two and need to call the line either every evening or on a schedule that is sent to you. What I always gripe about is that you call the day before you might potentially serve, and they don’t record the message until after 5 pm. Result is that when you leave work the day before, you have no idea if you will be called in or not. I get that thing can change quickly in a court, but most other professions can plan work more than a day in advance, our court just chooses not to do so. For that reason alone I have a low opinion of the court.
Anyway, I just served for a month last July, and had to call in every evening. Not a single juror was called in that month. But I did my jury service, they can’t call me back for three years.
Congrats, nearwildheaven, and thank you for doing your civic duty!
I have to admit to being a little envious. I’ve been summonsed several times, and even ended up in the courtroom last year for voir dire questioning by the judge, but have never actually made it into the jury box. I’ve dealt with juries as a trial lawyer and now as a magistrate for many years, and would love to see how the process works from the inside. Someday, I hope!
After many months of pandemic-imposed hiatus, a big local court is going to try to resume having jury trials with temperature scans, masks and social distancing later this month. I’m skeptical but willing to see if it works.
“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” - Thomas Jefferson
Every court is trying to figure that out. Federal courts in Seattle are experimenting with completely remote trials, with all participating via Zoom. They haven’t done one yet.
The state courts all over the map. In King County (Seattle) they have rented a convention hall and are doing trials with masks and social distancing. Some are doing jury selection via zoom, but bringing in the actual jurors to the courtroom. What used to take one day is now taking four or five.
Mostly, so far, civil trials are just being continued until next year.
I’ve been a registered voter for well over three decades now, in two different states, and never got a jury summons until ~2018, about two years after Mrs. Homie and I moved from Illinois to Missouri. Then I got a summons and was even voir dire-d but rejected. Been summoned twice since then, but both times the defendant pleaded out before voir dire.