I just got my notice for jury duty. I’ve had three people tell me that I won’t get picked because I’m a psychologist and nobody wants a psychologist on the jury. Is this true? Are lawyers in the same position? And if it is true, or true to any great extent, why call people with these jobs in the first place? I’d rather serve on a jury, but if I’m unlikely to be used, isn’t my community better served by my going to work instead?
Thanks.
last night I dreamed that a hamburger was trying to eat me.
what do you think that means?
Thanks, but I do that at work all day. Now I’m looking for an answer to my question.
From my jury selection experience i think that lawyers would not like you because you pass judgement on people as part of your job.
No, this is not necessarily true. Lawyers want people who will be sympathetic to their side, to be sure, but barring that they also want people who can understand the evidence presented and that will pay attention (a vastly underrated skill).
If you have certain political leanings or specialized knowledge that might be a “wild card” in the jury room, like knowledge of psychology in a case involving extensive expert testimony in psychology, you might get passed over, but generally education isn’t going to get you excluded from a jury.
As to why call you at all: you serve a public function just by being on a jury panel. There will always be somebody likely to be struck. It’s not the job of the clerk of the court (or whoever selects the jury where you live) to determine who isn’t qualified to serve for any given case; thats a determination only the court can make. You aren’t automatically disqualified by your experience.
Ah, but the court doesn’t know what job you have until you show up and sit through the voir dire. Unless the courts in your venue keep track of the occupations of all the citizens or have access to your tax records or the memberships of local professional organizations or whatnot.
So you’ll have to show up, answer a few questions, and then get bounced. It might be more efficient if they just kept track of all the psychologists and struck them from the jury duty list, but I’d be skittish of that level of government record-keeping. Besides, how would they track people who change professions?
Call me crazy, but that’s hows I feels.
When I was called for jury duty several years ago, I was in voir dire with a lawyer who knew BOTH the prosecutor and the defense attorney. He was knocked off the jury REEEEAL fast.
Let me try to explain from the get go.
You’re selecting a jury. The panel from which you are selecting is called the venire. A person from the venire panel is called the venireman.
When you are called, a preliminary examination called a voir dire is conducted, where either the lawyers or the judge (depending on the jurisdiction) asks you questions to determine your eligibility and suitability to serve as a juror.
Based on the answers you give in the voir dire, the lawyers can either move to strike you from the jury “for cause”, meaning there is some reason you are biased or otherwise ineligible to sit on the jury (e.g., a witness in the case, have biases you can’t put aside), or use a “peremptory strike” to strike you for any Constitutionally permissible reason (not race, for example). A party generally has an unlimited amount of strikes “for cause”, but only a limited number of peremptory challenges.
Only a lawyer in a particular case can strike you from that case with a peremptory challenge for being a psychologist. You aren’t immune from jury duty altogether; another lawyer may think you are perfect for his/her case, psychological credentials and all.
In Soviet Union, hamburger eats YOU!!
(I kill myself)
Nobody gets struck from a jury panel just for hs/her profession. A couple of the judges I used to work with were called for jury duty; they both ended up on panels for cases in a completely unrelated area of law from what they dealt with professionally (both were personal injury cases). They were both struck, but for other reasons (one because his wife is an ER nurse at the hospital involved in the case, and I can’t remember the other).
I’m a paralegal, and they were quite happy to have me as a juror last year, althjough of course it was in an unrelated area of law (darn car crashes!).
Actually, in Indiana at least, there are quite a few excusals related to profession. All the following are entitled to be excused upon request:
[ul][li]Anyone over 65[/li][li]Member of the United States Armed Forces[/li][li]Elected or appointed official of the federal, Indiana state, or local government[/li][li]Member of the general assembly[/li][li]Honorary officer of the state guard[/li][li]Member of the state reserve[/li][li]A veterinarian or a dentist[/li][li]Police or fire officer[/li][li]Correctional officer who has direct contact with inmates, or the spouse or child thereof[/li][/ul]http://www.in.gov/legislative/ic/code/title33/ar4/ch5.html
Quite a few of those are professions. Note especially veterinarians and dentists, which don’t make much sense, but are on the list.
You watch too much Seinfeld.
I have worked as a volunteer police officer, and was chosen for a jury. The jury foreman was a retired police officer.
I was also chosen as a jury member for a workers compensation case, and I’m a Safety Engineer. We also had a registered nurse on the jury.
In short, don’t expect your profession to automatically exclude you from jury duty.
My brother always takes his bible to jury duty. He gets excluded every time.
Once when I did jury duty and I met and chatted with a Catholic priest. He was struck off every panel they brought him to.
IAAL, in fact I was a prosecutor in California for a year and a half. Chose 8 juries. I can say that, if there is any issue of medical or psychological condition in the case, odds are one of the lawyers will excuse you as a peremptory. Not to sound too snide about my own profession, but generally lawyers DON’T want educated jurors, they want EDUCATABLE jurors. A psychologist in a case where a person’s psychological state is at issue might sway the other jurors, or be more influential in the jury room because of that experience. They might also let their professional training or knowledge affect how they hear testimony, or deliberate. That’s not supposed to happen. In certain jurisdictions, it’s juror misconduct for a juror to use their professional (or exceptional)knowledge to color the evidence. Classic example: a witness testifies in Spanish, and is translated by court interpreter. Court interpreter tranlates the testimony in one way, but a juror, fluent in Spanish, tells the jury that something the witness said should have been translated to mean something slightly, but critically, different. This is, in many jurisdictions, juror misconduct.
Because of this risk, many lawyers (especially those not well versed in jury voir dire) will just excuse professionals with any relevant education. FWIW.
Second issue - jury service lists are drawn in most cases from voting rolls. Recently, in an effort to expand the jury pools, some jurisdictions have switched to using drivers’ license registration lists. Neither of these information databases contain anyone’s employment or education history, and there’s a good reason - that would be discrimination against certain people for reasons not directly related to an ability to serve as a juror. Generally, there are only three crtieria for who can serve. Ability to understadn ENglish, ability to physically serve (no conditions that prevent you from sitting in a box for 2-3 hours at a stretch), and ability to set aside any biases the juror may have.
FWIW.