It's your DUTY, damn it!!

Great Debates
1

I mean Jury duty. I am sick & tired of whiners trying to get out of their duty as a citizen. And, here we have many threads where the same type of whiners are complaining about the “morons on juries”. Think about the glorious hypocrisy of it folks- on one hand- here we have us SDMBers- dedicated to fighting AGAINST ignorance- and what do far too may of you all want to do- get out of jury duty!

Now- I understand that sometimes you do have an important conferance or training or something- but the Judge or the clerk will almost always let you put it off for a while.

So what should the penalty for these slackers be? I suggest- they have no right to a jury trial. Or maybe a jury trial with folks who are informed the accused is a jury-duty slacker.

Or maybe- you AGREE it is OK to skip out on your civic duty? :rolleyes:

2

I’m with you, Daniel.:smiley: I think there should be stiff fines and public ridicule for evading jury duty. Furthermore, I believe that employers should be required to have unlimited jury duty pay. (My employer does!)

Although I haven’t read about Dopers trying to get out of jury duty. (heaven forfend!)

3

Ok- I can agree on requiring most businesses to pay their employees while they are Jury duty.

4

I think the entire court system should be done away with, and we should simply execute everyone who’s ever a suspect.

“Oops, we killed the wrong guy… oh well, I’m sure he would’ve gone insane and shot up his officemates, anyway.”

That way, we wouldn’t have to bother with such an obnoxious practice like “jury duty”!

5

Well, guess who would never get picked for a jury simply because he has the audacity to have long hair?

Here’s a hint: I think I would make a good jurist if given an opportunity, and I would like very much to serve and do my duty.

I’ll bet there are a hell of a lot more people who would like to serve and would do a damn good job who get zotzed because they are ______________. (Fill in the blank with any kind of person who stereotypically would not be good to be a juror in general or in a specific case.)

Yer pal,
Satan

6

Well, it seems clear that no SDMBers would be selected for jury duty becaue we read thenewspapers and watch TV news. Lawyers don’t want educated, intelligent people on juries; they want gullible doofuses who are more swayed by clever rhetorical devices than DNA evidence.

BTW, is this really a Great Debate?

7

Brian, if you want to become a jurist, you’ll have to see if you can tag along with Libby to class. I don’t think your appearance is preventing you from being a jurist.

8

You are quite mistaken.

Yer pal,
Satan

9

Sheesh, Brian, look up the word jurist. I never claimed you were not eliminated from a pool of jurors for your appearance.

10

Hey, Satan, maybe you should come to Southern California! If they took me, they’ll take anybody!

11

“Why do people lie to get out of jury duty? Just tell the truth! Tell the judge you’ll make a fantastic juror because you can spot guilty people just like that!”
-George Carlin

12

I spent an hour arguing with my Laundromat Lady last weekend about this. She—who’s lived in Iran, France and Russia—says, “I no go on jury duty—is none of my business! I vork and dey should leef me alone!” She also doesn’t vote, but complains loudly about whoever’s in office. I tried to explain to her that being a citizen of ANY country involves duties and responsibilities as well as privileges. No dice. Oh, well, maybe I don’t WANT her on my jury . . .

I used to try to get out of jury duty, like most people . . . Then came O.J. I am never going to try to evade jury duty again.

—Citizen Eve

13

I was only called once, and wasn’t put on a jury. Now that I’m in law school, I expect never to be picked for a jury. And then I have to put up with my mother telling me the clever thing she said to the judge to be sure she wouldn’t be picked. It’s really annoying.

14

I’m with ENugent on this one. I would have been happy to serve in my pre-law school days, but the only time I got called was after I’d already moved out of the county that called me. And having seen how lawyers act when they serve on mock juries, I sympathize with any future attorneys who will kick me off the panel just because I’m a lawyer. :frowning:

The only lawyer I know of who was ever allowed to serve was on a panel for a competency hearing, not a “real” trial.

15

Why is it that some people get called for jury duty every second week, but neither of my parents to my knowledge have ever been called?

16

It’s probably either luck of the draw or the method your city/county/state/whatever uses to compile the juror lists, matt. Here in Texas, a lot of counties used to take juror names off the list of registered voters. So avoiding jury duty was simple–just don’t register to vote. I think most places have gone to taking them off driver’s license lists, which gets you a much broader pool since most everybody has a driver’s license.

17

I’ve been called for jury duty 4 times and all of the cases settled so I didn’t even have to show up to court. It really sucks too because I’d love to be on a jury!

18

California allows lawyers and sitting judges to serve, at least in civil trials. I was in jury pool with 2 LA Superior Court judges, 1 practicing lawyer, and 1 law professor. Both lawyers made it on to the jury with me, both judges were excused with preemptory challenges.(1 each from defense and plaintiff)

19

I’m all in favor of a pool of peers (including me) to judge defendants, but since when is it a civic duty to:

Work for $50/day? (and in NY it used to be $5!). The judge in the case has a civic duty – does he work for $50/day? Does the defense lawyer, or the bailiff, or the stenographer? If jurors are the most important part of the process, surely they should be compensated at a rate that reflects that. “Oh, but the proposal on the table is that state makes my employer pay my wages,” say dan and others. Since when is it my employer’s civic duty to pay my ridiculously inflated salary and get literally no work from me while I’m on jury duty? Let the state pay a fair wage to those who don’t evade. Particularly in civil cases.

Be forcibly removed from my house for days at a time? Did you know that in New York State, the bias is to sequester jurors during deliberations in cases involving major felonies? Not just mafia cases or cases that get big press – every two-bit dealer who ever beat up one of his crackwhores. This ridiculous bailiff overtime scam means that jurors are legally required to live in a scummy airport hotel room, rooming with a stranger, until a verdict is reached. The heck with that. The next time they attempt to sequester me, I’m going to file a writ of habeus corpus with the court and bring the whole scheme down.

Intentionally remove myself from the normal goings-on of the world? Jurors are routinely ordered to avoid reading or watching the press, even in low-profile cases like the crack dealer above. Darlin’, current events is what I do! I need the Financial Times and my Bloomberg runs every day, several times a day. That’s when I’m on vacation, when I’m traveling on business, on weekends, even in the hospital. Shit, I think my will provides for a T-1 to my urn so that my ashes can catch the latest. There is exactly zero chance that I’m going to take myself out of the game on the infinitesimal chance that the Wall St. Journal will run an article about the stereo theft case or slip-and-fall insurance scam that I pull as a juror.

In fairness, things are much better than they used to be. They used to make you report for two full weeks if you didn’t pull a case, for example, and that is down to, I think, three days. Pay, as I mentioned, is up. Sequestration also used to apply to lesser felonies.

But they’ve got a long way to go before they make juror conditions reflective of the ostensible importance of the job. If the voters of a State really want dedicated professional people serving on juries, they will vote to pony up the money to treat jurors like professionals.

I go when called, but don’t expect me to whistle a happy tune and rejoice over my profound luck at the honor of serving.

20

How 'bout because your employer has the same access to the court system as any individual citizen, and that this is one of the social costs of that system? Maybe a nice little opt-out system would work, where the company doesn’t have to pay employees for jury duty time, but then it’s prohibited from any recourse to the courts. But everybody likes being able to receive benefits without paying any of the costs.

Still, I like your habeas corpus idea. Tell 'em that up front and you’re sure to get bounced for cause!