Hmm. I wear jeans to my jury duty, I don’t get any frowns directed at me. (With a solid colored short sleeved polo-style collared shirt.) I don’t even own any “dress” slacks…
I have only been to county jury duty though. Never Federal.
Not to rain on your parade, but you do realize that as an eligible US citizen, you could be called for jury duty for the rest of your life? So the fact that five years ago or whatever you got some questionnaire from the court, and then a few years later got another one, and then a few years later got another one… hey, this could go on forever. In my opinion and experience, the questionnaires are unrelated.
In complex cases, lawyers often get the Court’s permission to prepare questionnaires like the ones that you filled out. They do this because it saves time. The Court approves the questionnaire, and then it is sent out to a jury pool. You get 150-200 back (or whatever – depends on how many the Court allows you to do); the lawyers then review the questionnaires (with their jury consultants) and argue about what potential jurors to even call in. For example, suppose it’s a case about the use of a particular pharmaceutical that supposedly injured someone. The Court would probably agree that any jurors taking that drug (and maybe some related ones) don’t even need to come in for voir dire, because their personal experience taking the drug might color their view of the evidence.
Why not ask, Are you taking Drug X? Because then you’ve planted that notion in some jurors’ heads, and some may research. Also, maybe there are related drugs you want to know about. Or maybe you’ll looking for something else. So the reason for these invasive questions on the questionnaire is that they’re necessary to a fair resolution to the case, and it’s more efficient to give you five days at home to fill out a questionnaire rather than having you come to the courthouse and sit there filling it out, then go away, and then maybe come back.
You also mentioned “a liberal sprinkling of capital letters.” From the excerpt you copied, it seems that it’s mostly that they capitalized Court. That’s just what we do – it’s a sign of respect, and also the proper noun, so we capitalize.
The one time I had jury duty I wore jeans the first day and cargo shorts the rest (it was in July). I also wore polo shirts. Nothing was said to me; not even so much as a rolled eye (at least from the court staff; one older juror seemed to be giving me dirty looks).
I had to go back 3 times for my not so major, major case. The first time was an explanation of the case and the questions, the second time was for interviewing each potential juror, and in the third some got randomly put in the jury box (not me, luckily) and either dismissed or kept there. But I suppose that in the Bay Area there are a lot more people against the death penalty than where you are, not that they let people off for that.
I was a prosecutor. The people who showed up for their cases dressed in ripped jeans, cutoffs, and occassionally midriffs with sparkly letters across their breasts. These were people attempting to make an impression upon the judge who could very well decide their fate right then and there. On average, the best dressed defendants in any docket were those who came from the County jail. They were all showered and all in clean bright orange jumpsuits. Some of the others could only dream of wearing something that nice to court.
Yes. They need that language on there. Hopefully it was in bold and highlighted.