I’ve been called twice. The first time I was away at university out of town, so I called the court and was dismissed. The second time was about 10 years ago. I showed up at 8:30 and watched a video from c. 1991 about the Importance of Serving on a Jury. At 9:15 a court officer came out, said there was only one case and the defendant cut a plea deal and we were free to go. Boring, just like I like it.
Exactly. I have little patience for those who want to run their sucks for no value to the rest of us, folks who just want to hear their own gums flapping, when there’s work to be done and they are delaying that for the rest of us. I cut that off quickly.
Now if we’re just sitting around and waiting for something, that’s okay especially if they are entertaining… but once we’re on the clock, let’s get to it!
Some brief banter or humorous comment to keep the mood lighter is fine, but once you’ve gone past 3-5 seconds, that’s too long. At least in my book it is.
And I get frustrated with those who are moderators or leaders or forepersons or even managers at work, who don’t recognize that waste of everyone’s time.
Is 1240. Time to get back to the courtroom.
Oh, and I’m having lunch at a place the judge said plays into this case, in some way. I mean, I haven’t been told NOT to go here …
I have served as a juror in a few cases. On one of them where the defendant was accused of breaking into a car and stealing a radio, he was clearly guilty (hint: if the victim says she was alerted by her dog barking, and you claim that you were not in the area, do not say that you heard the dog barking in later testimony). I was the jury foreman and one juror, a young woman perhaps 22 years old or so, kept voting “not guilty”. Even though she said she thought that the defendant was guilty she said she could not vote to find anyone guilty because it’s not for her to decide. I reminded her that when the judge swore the jury in, once of the specific things mentioned was that the jurors affirmed that they had no reservations about finding someone guilty if that guilt is proven in court. I then grabbed a sheet a paper and told her that I was writing a note to the judge regarding her behavior in the jury room and she could enjoy explaining to the judge why she lied to him when she was being sworn in. She changed her mind before I could start writing. I wasn’t about to put up with her bullshit for a minute.
I’ve had three summonses but was only required to report twice, both times only making it as far as the jury pool. First time, we were getting prepared for the selection process when word came down that there had been a continuance and none of us would be needed.
I’m only counting visits, it must be closer to annual including standby waveoffs.
Like most people, I used to wish for early dismissal but, at this point and so many wasted days, I WANT to get selected. At least it might be interesting compared to the day in jury genpop. I’ve only been specifically called & dismissed once so it’s not like my appearance & background (both sterling) even get a chance to sink my enpanelment.
I can’t believe Timothy Evans is gone. It’s like I knew the guy.
King County (Seattle) has gone to zoom jury selection exclusively. You can remain at your home or office during the process and only need to head to the courtroom if you get picked for the jury. As you can imagine, jurors love it.
I was summoned once, and appeared in the pool. It was a capital case. I was dismissed probably because, in the questionnaire, I said one of my favorite musicians was Pete Seeger. I don’t know what Pete’s beliefs were on capital punishment, but I’m guessing (as were the lawyers, likely) that he was against it. At the time I was on the fence; or, rather, I was against it personally, but honestly thought I could set that aside as a juror. Now, I’d be dismissed instantly, since there’s no way I could set my anti-capital-punishment views aside these days.
Man, that is a great idea! I wish they’d do something like that in my county.
On the last jury I served, the one I mentioned earlier regarding human trafficking, while the attorney’s were questioning each juror, I decided to only give curt, yet truthful responses when they got to me. I saw that other potential jurors in the box did a lot of lame whining and explaining about why they could not be a juror, and some of them were excused. My mistake - my short and to-the-point responses gave the attorneys nothing to be bothered about, so I was not dismissed. My learning - if I want to escape next time, just start blabbering extensively until one of the attorneys gets annoyed enuf to cut me off.
I was a juror once. The defendant murdered his estranged wife as she left the office building where they had been having a mediation session. (BTW, there was no doubt; he was caught literally red-handed, where her blood was covering his hands.)
Partway through the trial, we had a field trip out to see the scene of the crime. That was a circus, what with all of the police there for security, the defendant himself, the judge, the lawyers and we the jury. At one point, the prosecutor pointed out where the defendant was parked. I didn’t catch this at the time, but we were meant to notice that the location gave him a direct view of the building entrance so he could see her exiting and that elevated the charges to “lying in wait.” In other words, they weren’t allowed to connect the dots for us; we had to hear the evidence and connect them ourselves. I was too much of an idiot to do so.
Another time I was brought in for jury selection along with a large number of others. Eventually we learned that the reason for the extra large jury pool was because it was a child molestation case; the defendant was a youth soccer coach who was caught giving a blow job to a fourteen-year-old boy who was on the team he was coaching. I really didn’t want to serve but had no excuse as my employer would give me my regular salary for the duration. I was not interested in hearing the details but what really made me cringe was the idea that the victim would have to testify about what happened in open court, with the defendant only twenty feet away, probably looking right at him. Fortunately, the defendant took a plea before the jury was empaneled.
Ha! When I was a juror around that same time, maybe 2023, the bailiff apologized that the 1960s era courthouse didn’t have enough outlets for all of us to charge our phones during the downtime. There’s a new courthouse under construction. He assured us that when it opens this problem will be remedied.
In 38 years of practice, I’ve never had this procedure invoked. I was really close once, but the case settled on the eve of trial. (we had made arrangements to move a houseboat from Lake Powel to a parking lot near the courthouse.
I think I mentioned this on this forum before, but I was a juror on a child SA case and it was not a fun experience. It was a young lady who waited until she was 18 to accuse her mother’s significant other. We had to listen to the evidence in detail, which was…gross. But it was pretty open and shut so I thought we’d at least see justice done.
But unfortunately we had a man on the jury who refused to believe anyone could lie to him without him knowing it. When this genius heard the defendant’s testimony on the stand he decided he was telling the truth and none of us could convince him otherwise. So it was a hung jury. The worst part was walking back out and seeing the young lady’s face as she learned her abuser was not going to be convicted. Afterward the judge thanked us for serving and told us these types of cases don’t usually go to retrial. So yeah, pretty awful through and through.
I live in Santa Barbara and that’s where Michael Jackson was being tried for child molestation. It was obviously international news and at one point they said that jury selection would begin the following week. The next day I got a summons and was none too pleased for a few hours until I found out that he would be at a different courthouse.
I’ve been called for jury duty a lot. I served on five or six juries, sat in the juror assembly room about four times without ever being called, and maybe three or four times I got to the courtroom and either never made it to the box or was dismissed. I never had any awful cases, but some very sad ones. One in particular was a third-strike case which they’re not allowed to tell us until we’ve finished deliberating. I was really broken up over that one.
Haven’t been called for four years or so. Maybe I’m too old?
It’s a good thing we don’t have jury trials for DWI here. There is a reason why per se levels exist. I had one guy who was walking around talking. If you only saw that on video you wouldn’t know he was drunk. His blood test came back as .409% BAC.
Pretty much the text book definition of burglary is entering with intent to commit a crime. Theft is a separate charge. The difference with that statute is in most places you usually have to enter a structure.
I’ve been summoned four times, actually completed voir dire twice (rejected both times), and the other two times the case was moved or delayed or canceled or what have you.
The only even remotely interesting anecdote for Jury Duty, at least that I’ve witnessed personally, was kind of a sad situation. This was in Bumfuk County, Missouri, where at least three quarters of the population lives below the Poverty Line, and at least one quarter lack reliable transportation. This was certainly one guy in the jury pool: in tears, he explained to the judge that he had to move Heaven & Earth just to get a ride to court that day – being as he lives 25 minutes away AND uses crutches AND had to call everyone he knew to beg for a ride and he got there but he wasn’t sure how he was going to get home and yada yada yada. He told the judge, respectfully, that if he (the juror) is assigned to the jury the judge might as well throw him in jail now, because there was no way he was going to make it. The judge let him off, but I imagine there are other judges in other jurisdictions who aren’t afraid to say “too bad so sad, figure it out.”
One that my mother witnessed: a potential juror, a female, accompanied by her husband. When it was her turn to ask questions, her husband spoke up and stated that she couldn’t serve because she is not allowed to speak in public. a) WTF and b) Seriously. But the judge let her off as well.
I served years ago while I was a college undergraduate, still wet behind the ears. Whiplash case…remember those? A civil matter where we were to determine if we believed the individual was injured and if so, how much in monetary damages he was entitled to receive.
A bored doctor gave a video recorded deposition where he stated (likely for the hundredth time), that he believed the patient when the patient told him that “it hurt”. There was no clinical assessment to objectively demonstrate the type or degree of reported pain.
We, therefore, had to determine our judgement on the basis of testimony given by the plaintiff, family members, co-workers, etc. It got a little weird when he and his wife were asked to describe how their sex life had been affected, though I guess that was germane. Same with other changes in behavior, missing work, etc.
In the end, we did decide the individual was entitled to damages, but only a fraction of the amount money he was asking for.
Some time later, I saw he and his wife strolling at one of our malls. He was chomping on popcorn and appeared to have no physical limitations (unlike in the courtroom where he moved gingerly).
When I went through jury selection, one of the prospective jurors claimed to have limited fluency in English and that would prevent her from serving. She was excused but one of the other jurors mentioned later that the woman’s English sounded fine when they met in the ladies’ room. IOW, she faked it.
Very, very few. Most judges understand that if you have one juror who struggles to attend, they will waste the time of every other person involved in the trial. Far easier to excuse a juror with such difficulties.